this was September

September brings cooler nights and lovely days. We head out of town for our first vacation in over two years. We gather with old friends and family and celebrate a bit of normal. The garden overflows with goodness, but the weather is hot and dry and I make notes to try different varieties next year because our climate has changed, and I watch as our water bill sores.

Percy grows like a weed and surprises us all with how much he talks and understands everything we say. He spends Thrusdays with us, playing in the sandbox and eating all the cherry tomatoes in the garden.

I find a calmness in the passing of days, pausing often to take note of the beauty in the world. I feel the need to reach out more, to work on reconnecting with old friends, allowing myself to feel a bit vulnerable and strong at the same time.

I get better at picking up my camera, searching for pockets of light and going beyond the back yard to do so. There is no other purpose for this other than the peacefulness it brings to my being.

“That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done,
obligations gathering, books and football in the air ... Another fall, another turned page:
there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning,
as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.”
-Wallace Stegner

love affair

I have a love affair with tomatoes and corn. I remember them from my childhood. I only had them in the summer. They were extraordinary.

- Alice Waters

I watch eagerly for them to ripen, which they seem to do in pairs. I like them on toast with a bit of mayo and salt. Oh, and chopped and added to really good cottage cheese.
Also, bitten like an apple, out of my hand, in the garden.

downsizing

“There is all the pleasure that one can have in golddigging in finding one’s hopes satisfied in the riches of a good hill of potatoes.”

― Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs

I dug the potatoes a few days ago, one small hill full of fingerlings and a few yellow fins. I spread them out in a box, covering them with a torn paper bags and leave them in the garage to dry. They won’t feed us through the winter, like in years past, but there are enough for a dozen meals or so. The satisfaction I get from reaching into the dry dirt and bringing up these jewels might sound crazy to someone who has never planted potatoes, but I find it is like one big treasure hunt. When I am done, I come in and wash my hands and scrub my nails, for I like to do it bare handed finding no matter how careful one is with a shovel, you always end up stabbing several in the process.

Later I head out with my camera to capture this dahlia. It is the second one to bloom this season, the other five slow to even set buds. I think of years past when I brought the blooms inside by the armfuls, filling every room with a bouquet. Today there are enough blooms for a couple of vases, one placed on kitchen window ledge and the other on the dinning room table.

I like to think of this downsizing as proof that less is more.

setting the table

This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive.

- Alice Waters

We have quests for dinner on Saturday night, someone other than our kids. It has been a long time since we entertained, and as I am setting the table in the afternoon, I find myself having a bit of fun. I dig out tiny vases for flowers and fill the votives with new candles. I mix things up a bit, and set out a different wine glasses at each place, thinking everyone can grab the one they like. I then go about the day; I wash the greens for the salad, make a smoked salmon dip for an appetizer and whip the cream for the frozen key lime pie. Every time I peek into the dinning room I smile. My sister would be proud of me, as she loves to set the table.

Me, not so much. We always sit at the table for meals, and have done so for as long as I can remember. But my family was, and still is way more interested in what we are eating, and to this day pay little attention to other details. I found it lovely however, especailly as the day faded over the lake out the dinning room window and the candles glowed.

It was just as lovely this morning as I drank my morning latte and watched the sun come up over the hills behind the lake-
right before I headed back into the kitchen, to unload the dishwasher for the second time.

on this morning

“One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew i would never see it again?”

― Rachel Carson

The delicate stems blow in the breeze, the flowers dancing in the flow. They have bloomed all summer long, and yet it was only on this morning that I stopped long enough to really see them in the morning light.

fall equinox

And you would accept the seasons of your heart just as you have always accepted that seasons pass over your fields and you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

-Khalil Gibran

At first glance these look like tomatoes, until you look closer, taking in the entire plant. The colors of bitter nightshade are always a pleasant surprise, making me wonder how many have dared to taste the fruit and been poisoned. I am amazed how nature in its wild form, imitates the flowers and plants we purposely grow for food and beauty.

I think about the shifting of the season as the fall equinox settles around us. How over time, if we pay attention, we learn that life too has its seasons, and so it is possible that even on the brightest days of summer, winter’s darkness can overtake us. Our only rebuttal is to understand that we cannot change the the seasons of our lives anymore than we can change the rotation of our world. So I come to this space lately, with not a lot to say. No wisdom or questions to ponder. Wanting instead to just share the nuances of the world around me that I have captured with my camera.

“There comes a day each September when you wake up and know the summer is over and fall has arrived. The slant of the sun looks different and something is in the air--a coolness, a hint of frosty mornings to follow. I woke early on the morning of September 24 and reached for a warmer petticoat.”

― Ann Rinaldi, Time Enough for Drums

getting ready for winter

“The squirrels, leaping joyfully from branch to branch: not a single one doubts its existence.”

― Marty Rubin

I sat and watched him fill up his cheeks and take off, slipping into a little hole underneath the cabin next door, only to be back on the stump in less than a minute.
Storing up for winter, never questioning that this is what he was meant to do.