Rain, Tardy Autumn, Clandestine Chocolate Consumption

This past weekend we bopped down to West Virginia to join my friend Kara and a passel of good people in the midst of tents and campfire smoke and amazing food (our last meal before departure consisted of falafel, two kinds of homemade hummus, olives and cheese, and pita bread.) The girls revelled in their first camping trip. Elspeth, absolutely filthy and stinky, ran around the campfire in a way that put ants in my feet soles; Merry threw herself into fire-making and delighted in her first real tent sleep in her Tinkerbell sleeping bag.

Down in that fairly cool hollow near Maryland, the leaves had actually begun to celebrate autumn. Our spirits sagged as we drove back north, into the heat, and Martin remarked dolefully, "The leaves are just drying up and turning brown. I'm afraid we won't have much of an autumn this year."

I am hoping Martin is dead wrong, though the heat has been oppressive and depressing this far into October. As in August, I have been closing windows and curtains in an attempt to capture the relative cool of the night in our house during the day. GLOOMY. I have dragged myself outside for brief spells in the garden. The overwhelming, sharp smell of cilantro gone-to-seed that I harvested this morning almost put me over the edge.

Brussel sprouts cling unnoticed to their stalks; tomatoes rot on their vine. I bypass those in favor of last yellow roses, a bucketful of feverfew, a few lonely stems of lavender. I will not be sorry to see the zinnias blacken and die, dropping their seeds into the ground for next year's spring. The sunflowers are drooping and picked-over by birds; soon the birds will look instead for handfuls of feed tossed into the shelter of their wee houses.

Our yard shows a small dusting of golden maple leaves, but the show this autumn so far is sad and anticlimactic. "Get used to it," Martin says grumpily, throwing new wood on the crackling blaze of angst, "We live in a warming world."

But wait--I bear great tidings. This afternoon, rain pelted from a dark sky. The girls and I stood in the open doorway, jumping deliciously at claps of thunder, watching the rain sweep down our street in sheets. And tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and so on, are forecasted cool, cooler, and cold. Never have I been so excited about pulling out sweaters at last. It jolly well better not be just here for two days again, either. Go away, gulf stream! Begone!

I celebrate now with a bowl of chocolate cookies, eaten secretly, upstairs in my office. Out of my window the walnut leaves are yellowing; the sky is full of cloud. Come frost, come candle-days, come shake-the-window wind. We're ready this time.

Many Doings

Here is an aging horse, bent with weary time, with his blushing young charges.

Dear, dearie me, I say like Papa Panov. Where has the time gone?

This morning Elspeth and I tottered down our rickety steps and began to save the poor potted plants on the deck, pruning geraniums mercilessly in some effort to save them for overwintering in the house. The weather reins warm for October still, soaring happily into the 80's during the day, but a possible freeze shivers in the near future, perhaps Monday.
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As a white candle
In a holy place,
So is the beauty
Of an aged face.
(Joseph Campbell: The Old Woman)

Every time we visit Grandpa and Grandma Irene, I am struck by this feeling: This is the way things were meant to be! With the very old and ill beside the young and slightly wild with energy! Elspeth brings Grandpa to life, a man who sleeps much of the day, medicated for Parkinson's. His life is filled with the gentleness of my Grandma Irene, who cares for him daily with humor and tenderness. Workers from Hospice drop by on a regular basis.

When Merry visits, she plays nurse, bringing Grandpa his medicine and bolting out hymns at his bedside in her powerful child's voice. Elspeth touches his face, waves coyly, and eats beside him at the table. When we drive out the short three hours to Ohio, everyone seems to think that we are doing my Grandpa a favor--but they are mistaken. We receive far more from that house than we could ever give--we come away touched by grace that reaches beyond understanding, grace that is patient and truly kind, and at its very center throbs with love. I feel sorry that this is not part of our dailiness, this sharing, and I chalk it up to the imperfect sort of world we dwell in, where those we love are scattered like autumn leaves across a wide expanse, where those we long to touch daily are out of reach.

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So last weekend we visited with Grandpa, Grandma Irene, and my mother, ate inordinate amounts of cake and pie, and arrived home in time for my class to troop over to our house on Monday evening. While I have certainly enjoyed the students in my class, the responsibility of a mere weekly class weighs on my schedule in a rather heavy way, limiting me from staying over the weekend at my Grandpa's, for instance. How I chafe against responsibility of the scheduled, inflexible sort!

In other news, I am considering knocking holes in the kitchen to let in more sunlight. We have no money to hire adequate help and I am slightly terrified of knocking out 100-year-old plaster walls and masonry, a fear that Martin believes is warranted and present for a purpose. (I will not knock holes in the walls, I will not knock holes in the walls.) But I am very, very tempted, especially as I spend almost all day in the kitchen, and it is practically the darkest room in the whole house. I cannot say whether the midwinter doldrums might not press me to insane measures and the swinging of a sledgehammer. . .

Is it the mellowing weather? The leaves on the ficus tree fading to yellow? The walnut tree dropping its bulbous fruit? The blood-red cardinal craning its neck over a fading sunflower? I'm missing old but lovely friends: Tim and Lindsay, I dreamt about you last night; Kurt Cole, wish we could see your brave face. Why are you all, all of you, so very far away?