The Nature Abides

Well, I talked with Daddy for a little while yesterday and he said that I ought to just write what I have been thinking about because chances are that if I wait for exciting things to begin happening weeks like this last one will go by and nothing will appear on here. So, my thoughts on things…no pressure now. I think that Drew and I are both anxious for the seasons to roll over. We have the most beautiful maple tree that turns an incredibly brilliant and unusual orange for about a week each year directly outside a large picture window in our living room. Our house is so small that it fills our entire home with color and casts both a charming and eerie aura on the walls and furniture and exudes a sense of anticipation for the last quarter of the year.

Mom has always said that Autumn is her favorite season and I think that, in its way, Fall is a lot like avocados, cigars, goat cheese or ripe olives among other things in that it is a somewhat mature and acquired taste. As kids, the year inevitably revolves around Spring and Summer–the coveted extra hours of daylight and the freedom of being away from school–which still certainly resonates in this household. Over the last couple of years though we have both been chomping at the bit waiting for cooler nights and crisper mornings as we start casting longing looks in the direction of stored away sweaters. We have even pulled out our down comforter already though a sheet is all that’s really needed. I am, by nature, not impatient really, but driven by instant gratification and so it seems that this is yet one more lesson in various virtues taught by nature that I will have to ‘patiently’ abide.

One of my favorite poets,May Sarton, wrote some beautiful Autumn Sonnets that essentially point to her belief that that love remains even in death, as the roots of a tree remain strong even as the leaves fall. While the dead stay unrisen, we do have the luxury of knowing that watching the days get shorter and leaves fall to the ground only means that it will only be a few short months before the cycle is complete and the rebirthing begins again.

She writes:
If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation,
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange
(For love itself may need a time of sleep),
And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure – if I can let you go.

Sonnet 2 from “the Autumn Sonnets”

I am jumping ahead of myself here, as it’s 80 degrees and I’m still in sandals, but it turns out that crunching leaves, bulbous pumpkins and crafty projects for the encroaching Fall are all that I can think about.