Fall is in the air tonight, even though it’s technically not quite here yet.

My evening walk revealed familiar scents I haven’t smelled in about a year. Pot roasts and spaghetti dinners filled the neighborhoods, meals that have been hidden away since the heat of the summer months began. Someone was baking cookies — I suspected it had been too hot up until now to do anything substantial in the kitchen, aside from eat raw cookie dough…not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Sprinklers were keeping lawns green. In the night air the water smelled crisp, fresh and clean — a big departure from a few weeks ago when sprinkler overspray would hit the asphalt, making it smell like a Southern thunderstorm pounding down upon hot blacktop.

Gone were the mosquitos and evening gnats. Gone was the stillness that inspired sweat after being outside for only a few seconds’ time. Gone was the stickiness and the uncomfortable humidity.

If the past is any indication, these things will likely return before too long. October could be difficult as it has in years prior, vying for summer’s crown and hoping to steal it from June, July or August; an Indian summer could roll around in the middle of November.

It reminded me that, as in life, when we most need a break there’s generally one just around the corner. It doesn’t mean there won’t be a return to those things which wore us out in the first place, but it does mean a brief respite from the grind — and for that I am thankful.