Just for a moment, things seemed to be in balance

At 10:49 a.m. on Saturday, I was sitting at the soccer field – watching Brannon’s soccer team battle a tough Conrad Weiser team. I was watching the boys get knocked around, watching Brannon get kicked in between the shin guard and the shin – cringing every time someone went up for a header.

Saturday started out kind of cloudy and cool. And yet – right around 10:49 – the sun came out and the temperatures felt like they soared. They didn’t really soar – but warmer than they should have been for late September.

What was so important about 10:49 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 22? Why that was the exact moment that we left summer behind – and moved into the much more Donna-friendly season … fall, followed closely (I hope) by winter.

I say “good riddance” to this summer – the summer of record heat, wilting flowers, brown-ish grass, a soaring electric bill and getting into a car that had to be 1 million degrees by the end of the day. OK – maybe I exaggerate a bit – it was only 500,000 degrees.

It wasn’t all bad, of course. I will miss watching Brannon race for his swim-club swim team on Mondays and for himself on weekends, barbecues, a trip to Virginia to the beach, our trip to Knoebels, juicy peaches, sweet corn on the cob – and all the family times enjoying the best of summer. We’ll just tuck the good memories away to be taken out and laughed about. The other things – heck, they don’t really mean anything, anyway, so we’ll just forget them.

While I was at the soccer field, my sister texted me the picture you see here. It seems my nephew took on the challenge of seeing if he could balance an egg on its end during the equinox. People talk about this being possible, but only on the two equinox days. Kudos to Adam – not only did he get one egg to balance – he balanced five!

I searched “standing eggs on end during the equinox,” and right at the top of the results was one from the big kill-joy website - snopes.com. They explained that the Chinese are believed to have started the practice, as a way to symbolize that nature is in balance and harmony. Usually, the practice is associated with the spring equinox, but if you can do it then, you should be able to do it on the other equinox, right?

There’s the evidence – it CAN be done. Unfortunately, what snopes.com revealed to me is that it can actually be done on any day of the year – with patience, of course. Like I said – kill joy!

Regardless – for that brief moment in time – everything was in harmony … did you feel it? I know that for that one minutes at the soccer field, I was calm … and then the craziness took over again.