Each fall it happens. Whether it is the foliage, or the dust kicked up by central heating that has been dormant for seven months, come late October my asthma returns. Many years I am caught off guard. After three weeks of wheezing I remember. Howard Gardner has named body awareness as one of the nine strains of intelligence and I suppose my score is rather pathetic.

Then again there are autumns when I anticipate it. My daughter gifted me with an oil infuser, and recently I began to fill the living room with its subtle aroma. Last week I hauled the air purifier out of the closet and started turning it on at night. Even the pillows on my bed get washed, to lower the dust mite count. 

Unfortunately the purple prescription disk that keeps my airways from getting inflamed has been a target of price jacking. It now costs several hundred bucks for fifty puffs. But since I only need it for a few months, well, I pay it.

Experience has shown that the season lasts only so long. At least in Pennsylvania. When we lived in Florida the humidity kept mold alive and well and my asthma lingered much longer. But these years, it subsides by December. 

Marriages occasionally gasp for breath. Sometimes it is the fallout of attention being drawn elsewhere. For other people the insidious fungus of less than lovely influences suck the life out of relationships.  

Yet we can be proactive. We can both anticipate the return of waning light and warmth, and strategize against it. 

That is an indication of not just intelligence, but wisdom.