Ever so often I think about moving. I’m not just getting old any more; I am old. The house and yard are much more difficult to keep up, and I find myself hiring out jobs that I would have done myself not too long ago. So, about once every couple months, I find myself saying “I need to sell this place and move into a condo.” Well, then, what about the dogs? They’d have no yard to play in. And that settles it—again—for a while.

Then there’s a morning like this one. In some city condo, would I smell fall in the air as I do on my back porch now? Would I be able to watch pine needles fall with every little cool breeze—even though I know I must rake them up, store them to use as winter mulch on the beds. Would I have the problem of gathering up the pecans, storing them to cure, or taking them down to the pecan company to be cracked and blown, then shelling them at night in front of the TV and trying to keep the dogs away from them. (The only way is to give them a piece of the meat now and then. For that, they obediently sit and wait. Without that, they try to poach when I’m not looking—thereby possibly getting a dangerous piece of shell.)

In a condo, I’d have none of the chores I do now. The ivy needed constant trimming in summer but now a deep trim in the fall. Time to cut back the hedges I’ve let run wild over the summer and trim the camellias. Time to put out lettuces and fall greens in the vegetable beds, fret about the bald cypress and fertilize it, prune the plum tree. There’s a lot to do, but the biggest chore is the general fall clean-up, getting ready for withdrawal indoors for winter.

I’m sure I’d notice fall if I lived in a condo, but I don’t think I’d notice it in such an up close and personal way. I wouldn’t have the breezes singing in the pines. I wouldn’t have the promises I always make to the garden, things I meant to do this year and didn’t, things I will do next year, God willing. Living long means a more careful notice of seasons, how changes are expansions and contractions, going forth and drawing back. Just like days and nights—rising and doing in the mornings, then stillness and sleep at night. An active, working life makes days pass without much notice of these things—just busyness always—but in retirement, old age, one lives the activity and rest pattern with much more awareness. Everything, really, is more noticeable. In a condo, without the seasonal chores, I think any notice I might have would be different—sadder somehow. I wouldn’t be a participant in the seasons, maybe not even a spectator if I lived in a city.

My doctor gives his older patients bi-annual physicals and tests. There will come a time—sooner now, rather than some distant date in the future—when some result will be the dreaded one, and the ultimate withdrawal will begin. But not yet, thank you, Lord, not yet. To move into a condo is to decide to cease participation in the life of the garden, to withdraw into winter by one’s own choice rather than his. For now, I’ll go by his timetable. And so today I’ll gather up the rake, the gloves, and the tarp. Fall is here again. There’s a lot to do.