The swift passage of time has always been tough for me to take. Suddenly, with the birth of my first child, I am even more cognizant of its mercurial nature, and I feel a twinning fear and joy because of it: fear that my life will pass by without my having truly lived it the way I wish, and joy that I have a precious daughter and family, a child to watch grow and change.

Suddenly, it is November. In Brevard, the peak of Fall has come and is almost gone: yellow and orange and red are leaving us with browns, bare branches, and frosted windshields in the mornings. The heat has officially been turned on in our house, our fleece clothes pulled from attic bins, my black labrador's coat growing thicker--making her look a bit like an adolescent bear.

We spent the weekend at my family's lakehouse in the South Carolina Blue Ridge. My sister, her husband, and most of his family flew in from Memphis, Tennessee for a Halloween respite, and it was good. We watched football at the Tiki Bar, ate candy and homecooked meals, took boat rides, drank wine, laughed a lot, and were thoroughly entertained by my three month-old daughter. I never knew how thrilling, how special it would be to watch my beloved "little" sister holding and playing with my child. Several times I found myself just watching them, smiling.

The holidays are only weeks away, and another year will soon pass in a bittersweet flash of familiar faces and voices, car rides, Christmas carols, decadent treats, wrapping paper, wood fires, rush and hustle, and exhaustion. I wonder if I'll ever understand the mysterious necesity of this--that relentless pace of time--but watching my daughter with my family under a Halloween sky and in a place we all love, it stood still if only for a moment.