Changes: can’t live with them; can’t live without them. Whether willed or imposed, they present difficulties — or perhaps I should say “opportunities for growth.”

Shifting to another spot in the Metro parking garage because there’s an 18-month rebuilding plan, for instance. Or switching my commute from drive, Metro and bus to … drive and Metro alone.

Small changes, one imposed and one chosen. Both a lot to wrap my head around before 8 a.m.

They’re just ways to stay limber, I tell myself as I walk to work. As if to underline these thoughts, I trod upon the first crinkled brown leaves of the season. Is it autumn already? No, just a couple of streetscape oaks that have fallen on hard times.