October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen. It is the distant hills once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above them once again.
- Hal Borland
The sun is a constant companion on these first days of October.
The night sky full of so many stars, I can barely take them all in.
She is my favorite month, and I plan not to waste a moment.
“The restlessness and the longing, like the longing that is in the whistle of a faraway train. Except that the longing isn't really in the whistle—it is in you.”
― Meindert DeJong, The Little Cow and the Turtle
I watch two scuba divers come to the surface of the tiny inlet and wonder what sights they might have had privy to below the surface of the water.
I walk among the weeds looking for signs of fall, and stop on my way out on the train tracks to take a photo.
My longing for beauty keenly satisfied, as dusk falls on this beautiful fall day.
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
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.
“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.
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.
“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.
