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Category: seasons

Inner Light

Inner Light

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It’s cloudy and warmish,  a still day made for long walks in the gathering leaves. I won’t have time for such a thing, but it’s nice to dream about it on my short strolls with Copper.

Say what you will about autumn color set off by blue skies, but when it’s gray outside the bright trees seem to glow from within. It’s as if the stored goodness of all those days in the sun are giving something back to us now — something that says, yes, we will fall and crinkle and be trod underfoot; yes, our whitened trunks will be revealed and cold winds will blow — but beyond it is all this radiance.

That’s what it seems like on cloudy days in October when birds are still singing and squirrels scamper to store food and summer annuals cling to life in pots on the deck.

We’ll see how it feels in a few weeks…

Golden Glow

Golden Glow

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I walked downstairs yesterday and was enveloped in a golden glow. It was the witch hazel tree, that stalwart of the garden, earliest to bloom and gracious in its un-leafing.

Perhaps because I’m sauntering through the season with our little doggie, I’m noticing the autumn colors more this year. The oak at the end of the street is at its most fetching, an almost neon orange set off by the green still left on the tree. I have a favorite view of it, which is from the meadow where it’s framed by bare branches.

Elsewhere in the neighborhood there are russets and roses and burning bushes bursting by the roadside. Northern Virginia has never been a fall wonderland — we have our springs, after all — but for a week or two we sport a kind of mellow beauty that speaks of the serenity this season can hold.

True Foods?

True Foods?

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It happens reliably, when the first nip of fall is in the air. And it’s been happening reliably for decades, back to when I lived in Chicago and even in New York City. When the temperature drops, out come the recipe books, the cutting boards, and the pots and pans.

Salads, my go-to meal of choice, don’t appeal when the temperature plummets. This year, thanks to a recent meal at True Foods Kitchen, I’m looking for ways to recreate some of those scrumptious dishes: ancient grain bowls and roasted cauliflower with dates and pistachios.

Lately I feel like I’ve been suspended between the food of my youth, baked chicken and spaghetti and other plain fare, and some new cuisine in the making, some other way to eat, which is more plant- and grain-based, though not without the occasional bit of chicken or beef or fish.

I don’t have a lot of time for cooking, so that makes it difficult to prepare the sort of recipes I’ve just been reading. But maybe I’ll tackle a couple anyway. After all, the light is low and nights are dipping into the 30s.

It’s time.

Suddenly Cool

Suddenly Cool

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It was 37 last night here. I’m tempted to research highs and lows to learn just how long ago it was since we had such a temperature. Back to April, I imagine.

In honor of the brisk air, I’m back in black running tights and sweatshirt — and am wishing for socks that came up farther than my ankles.  Seasonal change may finally be upon us.

I’m no fan of cold weather, but once it’s here, I remember why we need it: to kick the fall foliage into high gear, to energize us — and, more than anything else, to provide variety.

It feels good to pull on tights — not just because they are warm, but because they are different.

AC in OCT

AC in OCT

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I write from the comfort of an air-conditioned living room, a living room that, I believe, may never have been air-conditioned before in the month of October. But this is no ordinary fall.

It was 98 degrees here yesterday. We’re not alone, either. It was 92 in New York City and 96 in Wilmington, Delaware.

That weather patterns are changing is no secret. And we have the electric bill to prove it — with more AC days this summer than last and more last year than the year before. 
I remember when heat waves were, in fact, waves, and not tsunamis. But no matter, it is cooler today, and we will soon slip into a more seasonable pattern that will once again let us pretend that everything is as it should be.

Fading Ferns

Fading Ferns

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The ferns are fading. They’ve turned crusty and brown. In some light, perhaps, they appear golden. But that’s a stretch.

I know it’s only seasonal change, but there’s something about ferns that speak more than most plants of youth and vigor. And I feel bad for them in this sorry state.

I think back to April and the earliest tendrils, how exciting it is to see these strange things emerge from the cool and leaf-strewn soil.

I think of how well they have served us through the summer, how faithfully they have waved in the breeze, how cannily they have outwitted the hungry deer that stalk these parts.

Yes, they will be back next year, I know. And I’ll watch them unfurl and come into their own once again, perhaps even spread, as they are wont to do. But it won’t be these ferns. These ferns … are fading.

Summer and Fall

Summer and Fall

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On the first day of autumn, I walked outside after dark to get something from the car. I was wearing a white nightgown, not the lightest one I have because after a sweltering 90-plus-degree day, the air conditioning was back on.

My purpose was purely practical, but the night was alive with balmy air and the sound of crickets and katydids. I was suddenly aware that despite the seeming permanence of these summer sounds, they are extremely time-limited. The bugs chirp as if they have months to live when it’s probably more like weeks.

I was sorry to walk back into the quiet of a darkened house, windows closed against the heat and humidity. It’s been a warm summer, and many are longing for a spate of coolness. But I’m not. Say what you will about crisp autumn air, warm wool sweaters and chili simmering on the stove… I wouldn’t mind if we had another month of summer swelter.

September Song

September Song

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Here’s what our recent weather makes me think, and it’s something I think often this time of year in the Mid-Atlantic: that if you’ve been very good and borne up well under summer heat and humidity, September gives you days like these: languid and bright with pleasantly warm noons and lovely cool evenings.

I savor each brief hike, each long, languorous stroll with Copper. I wake to air cooled not by a machine but by night itself, as window fans pull in the loamy coolness and send it swirling around the house.

I know the rains will come, the leaves will tire, turn and fall. But not yet. These golden days are like a love duet between two seasons. They’re a September song.

Shaggy Beauty

Shaggy Beauty

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A cloudy walk on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail bridle path. Or at least I call it the bridle path. It’s the cinder trail that runs alongside the main paved road.

Taking it meant I could avoid the “On your left’s” that would surely have been the soundtrack of my walk had I jockeyed for position with the speeding cyclists who cruise up and down the 26-mile ribbon of asphalt on weekend mornings.

The road not taken was just right for the day. I had a close-up view of the autumn foliage, the goldenrod and chicory and wild clematis cascading over greenery. It was a shaggy beauty —profuse, casual, easy on the eye.

Fallophoboia

Fallophoboia

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You won’t find this condition in the DSM. It’s real, though. It’s the fear of falling leaves, nips in the air and all the other harbingers of autumn that put a skip in other people’s steps.

I won’t deny that I’ve enjoyed the last few low-humidity days, the blue skies of Sunday, the white puffy clouds, sleeping under a light cover with the windows thrown open to the evening air.

But brown leaves on pavement give me a fright, as do quieter nights, crickets only, no katydids.

I love summer, that’s all there is to it. And while I console myself with the knowledge that spring will be here again before we know it, the truth of the matter is that we must trudge through fall and winter to get there. And sometimes that seems like a tall order.