Weather Shifts

I believe the seasons are changing right now outside my window. At this instant storm clouds blow low across the the tops of the green hills; wind gusts through the ornamental plum. The cosmos are dipping their bright orange heads to black seed. The children, besweatered, pick the last of the raspberries.

We'll still have some weeks of fine tomatoes if the weather doesn't fall too low. Otherwise, as confirmed by our neighbors--the mother and daughter who live with a little white dog down the old brick road--we'll be slicing them in a pan and frying up some crispy green tomatoes. Martin intended to plant a whole crop of greens and sugarsnap peas, but he's back in his teaching mode and we'll be lucky if he mows the grass before I do.

I adore sweater weather, especially after the oppressive 90+ days we've endured so much of lately. Yesterday this time the temperature was climbing with a blazing sun in a clear sky but even last night when Mom and I walked to the ridge overlooking town, the weather was changing. The clouds were unbelievable: Renaissance clouds, Mom called them--great scoops of white cream, mounded thick and high, a thousand edges outlined in silver. When we tipped our heads back, loose buttercup-colored fluff trailed away, white wisps across blue.

I haven't seen clouds like this in many years. My mother reflected that my Nana, a painter, would have been beside herself with excitement at such a spectacle. Were I still a child, I would have pictured my Nana up in heaven with God, shaping those clouds with her hands and a sculptor's knife, tipping bottles of glitter and highlighting each golden curve with her fingertips. Looking down on us on that ridge in Pennsylvania, she would have blown them down over our heads, smiling at our open-mouthed wonder.