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Thursday, October 05, 2006 There's been so much going this last week that I have no real idea how to lay it out in print, no real idea how to describe it all. That may be due in part to the feeling of sitting in the middle of a benign twister -- hours and days whirling past, seeming clear in the moment, but afterward appearing in my memory like the old cartoon image of the Tasmanian Devil: wild motion, with small, ever-shifting, silly details peeking out from it. As happened last year, we've been experiencing what seems like the global warming version of Vermont autumn -- not truly summery, not truly cold. And to this point, no killer frost, something that used to be a sure bet for September. Farm stands and farmers markets have featured abundant produce that, in the past, would have been wiped out weeks ago. Leaves have been falling, trees have been putting on a display, but it's been quiet, muted. This last weekend took a turn toward a cold, gray kind of autumn weather that sometimes elbows its nasty way in, conditions that can send my frame of mind into a nosedive after a day or so. In this case, it sent me into a semi-retreat, me spending most of Sunday on the couch. Monday morning, when I dragged my adorable booty out of bed and made the drive into Montpelier (at far too early an hour), a different landscape met me, one glowing with autumn color, the cold/damp having somehow provided a kick in the metaphoric pants to the local foliage. Last week: pretty but nothing fancy -- this week, local radio chatter claims that we may be in the middle of the most colorful autumn in years. And as if on cue, local roads and highways are clogged with cars bearing out-of-state plates and big charter buses, faces inside peering out at, er, us. And at the fleeting show of otherworldly beauty Vermont musters at this time every year. The There have been times here in the last couple of weeks where leaves flew before cool breezes like oversized snowflakes, filling the air, collecting at the sides of local roads, cartwheeling through parking lots in Montpelier. Images and sounds that get me feeling a combination of pleasure and melancholy. One thing for certain: there's no stopping the flow of the days. They melt away, the nights grow longer, Halloween decorations appear on more and more houses. There's plenty to be done here, between pre-winter tasks around the house and preparations for a lengthy absence. A month from today I'll be back in Madrid -– a shift in reality that seems overwhelming if I stop and think about it. So I don't. I just make my way ahead, a step at a time, through the beauty and strangeness of the passing days. That'll do for now. España, te echo de menos. rws 8:20 PM [+]
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