There is a state I often find myself in, when working outside. The “closing things down for the day” routine. Shutting the doors to the shed where the chickens live. Putting tools away. Knowing I won’t come back out again today to play with whatever I was working on. Or maybe I will, but if I don’t, then there will be no (extra) harm that will come because of my neglect.
I sometimes feel myself amplifying that feeling out to the end of the season. If it snows today and summer ends in a sudden bluster, it will be okay. It’s not usually (or at least not always completely) true, but in my mind it somehow has to be. Battening down the hatches against the end of the world.
I’ve never found myself thinking so much towards future years. Not in terms of what will I do one day but the future in a matter-of-fact way. That today will be roughly like the next, and the next, and the next. Perhaps on into years, as the trees planted this season grow taller, as the small jobs I do fixing or building around the house get done, and others take their places.