Receding

[Field, Merriam and Meadowbrook Rds, Grafton; 10/08/06]

Given enough time to accept the passing of summer - which, incidently, has been slow here this year, with temperatures early this week up near 80 degrees F - I find myself bracing against the chill air with unexpected pleasure. The sun is still bright, and so are all my surroundings, as if loosely wrapped in a crocheted afghan of yellows and oranges below the startling blue sky at midday, the folds of crimson and dusty blue at sunset. It's a good time to recede, pull back, rethink, let the overblown aspirations of the spring and summer go to seed, without judgment. Soon enough it'll all be compost.

The work week - good work, hard work, sometimes exhausting work - is over. Last night's date was mixed - good food and wine, not very interesting company. I am freed of all of it for the rest of the weekend. This afternoon I'm going to the Fort Point Channel Open Studios event, and staying in for an after-party with friends who live in one of the artists' lofts there. I will not want for interesting company! The rest of the weekend, needing to put some things back in order here at home, speaking of things becoming overblown. And maybe I'll make an apple crisp tomorrow. Nesting.

Comments

[Sara]

I really like the "crocheted afghan" simile. That's just what it's like this year, a lace of brighter colors infiltrated the darkening and fading colors of summer.

Every year here is so different. Some years, all the leaves seem to turn at once and leave at once. Some years, it's like a conflagration all over the landscape. This year is gentle and subtle. Like you, I find I am eager for the cold. At the same time, I am luxuriating in what we're having, enjoying these brilliant blue skies after such a grey, wet summer, and placing bets with myself whether the last tomatoes will have time to ripen.

[leslee]

Thanks, Sara. You're right, it's not all blazing this year - and the rains this week may knock off many of the leaves, alas. The colors right now, especially in the low light at the end of the day, have been beautiful. (You still have tomatoes?!)

[Sara]

Yes! It's some unknown species of grape tomato I bought as a seedling at Hutchins Farm this spring. There are six or seven little green tomatoes still growing on it, though every other tomato plant has died, and the plant is even trying to grow another branch from its root base.

Crazy, huh? I photographed the little green nodules next to the blown hyssop and volunteer sunflowers yesterday partly because they are beautiful, partly because I knew no one would believe me.