And if the person you seem to be now has drifted too far away from the “real” you…perhaps it’s time for a little reclamation. 🙂
Reflection
Hello, November!
Photo I took near a farmer’s field, of geese noisily heading South for the winter
Two quotes of the season by two authors whose work I have enjoyed:
“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.” ~L.M. Montgomery
“Wild geese fly south, creaking like anguished hinges…Season of woolen garments taken out of mothballs; of nocturnal mists and dew and slippery front steps…” ~Margaret Atwood
A Late Autumn Photo Diary
Driving down my street this morning
Many people around me complain about living in upstate New York because of the long, hard winters (and I’m not arguing with them – they can be long and hard). But there is also so much to enjoy in every season. I’m always amazed at the beauty and variety of Mother Nature and thankful to live where I do to see all the different “moods” she wears.
This is going to a kind of “picture diary” of my drive into work, with glimpses of sights along the way (I was actually running early for once and so I could safely stop and take a few snaps as I went). 🙂
So the pic above is just after I turned out of my driveway…beautiful mist and golden-russet leaves strewn across the gray pavement…
Swampy marsh
Next up, around 15 minutes into my drive…an atmospheric marsh with the sun coming up behind it. Sometimes I see Blue Heron flying in or out of it, and it’s got that sort of “gothic” feeling so lovely for this time of year, with the fog sometimes rising from the water and the black tree branches reaching into the sky.
A few minutes later, I enjoyed this pretty scene.
field mostly in the dark, still, with the sun just peeking over the horizon
field in the rising sun, backed by blue sky and lacy clouds
The fields were still shrouded in dark and then the sun came fully above the horizon and colors appeared…frosted grasses, brown branches, and a few trees still decked out in their autumn glory.
Frosty cornfield
On the way down the big hill into the valley where my school is, there’s a cornfield. Even the muddy, rutted area where the stalks have already been cut is made beautiful by the gilding of frost, so that it almost shines in the rising sun.
An Amish home
Stacked harvest of corn stalks
Lastly, there is an Amish community in the area, and their houses are all white and glowing in the misty morn.
The field across the road from this home is prepared for winter in the old-fashioned way, with the corn stalks harvested and placed “haystack” style. A picturesque and beautiful scene.
Mother Nature continually amazes me as she shifts and changes, attiring herself in her new wardrobe each season and slowly but surely adding tried and true “pieces” to her ensemble. First the shock of colors heralded her shift into autumn, and now the gilding of frost is her way of flirting with the garments of snow she’ll wear in another month or two.
I look forward to the transition. What’s Mother Nature doing (and looking like) where you are?
Weaving Dreams
Mist-cloaked autumn field and trees
“We gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull world around us into dreams.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe
Hubknuckles
A sweet book from a simpler time
When they were in elementary school, this was a favorite book for both my girls, especially around this time of year. It has some lovely black and white, soft-edged illustrations by Deborah Kogan Ray, and it was originally published in 1985, purporting to be based upon a slightly spooky but also sweet and ultimately positive experience had by the author, Emily Herman, when she was little.
My younger daughter so enjoyed the details and descriptions in the story, that from the very first time I read it to her, she begged for us to have “spaghetti and meatballs” for supper that Halloween, since that’s what the narrator and her family have in the story on that night.
We’ve been having spaghetti and meatballs for Halloween supper ever since. 🙂
Here’s the book’s description:
“Every Halloween, Hubknuckles pays a visit to Lee and her younger sisters and baby brother. The children watch the ghostly figure from the safety of their warm kitchen, experiencing delicious little tickles of fear.
But this year, Lee has decided that Hubknuckles isn’t real. “Hubknuckles is just a sheet and a flashlight,” she tells her sisters. “Either Ma or Pa makes him dance.” And she is determined to prove it.
What Lee discovers after an eerie dance on the lawn with her silent, shadowy partner is sure to delight young readers, who will be enchanted by the softly glowing illustrations of this unusual Halloween happening.”
I recommend it highly if you have or know of young children who enjoy reading or being read to, say from kindergarten age to age 9 or so. It remains one of my older daughter’s favorite stories. And my younger daughter, who is a decade older than she was on that long-ago Halloween when we first read Hubknuckles together, is now an avid reader in own right, in large part due to the way books like it triggered her imagination. This story is available for kindle or in hardcover (though the link I’ve provided in the title here leads to the hardcover version at amazon.com).
One of the things I miss, now that my girls are no longer so little, is the loss of those opportunities to read to them like I used to. Seeing this book brings back many happy memories of times together, snuggled up and enjoying a good tale. But I’ve ordered copies for both of them, so they maybe they will be able to recreate that magic when they read it to their children one day.
An Oasis of Tradition (and some Cathartic Pumpkin Carving!)
Courtesy of escapeadulthood.com
So this isn’t a generic pumpkin-carving post. It’s about how carving pumpkins, in additional to being entertaining and leading to some pretty cool jack-o-lanterns, can be cathartic too.
Ma, enjoying the process of carving out her pumpkin’s eye, LOL
Consider this picture of my dear, very sweet, normally-without-a-violent-bone-in-her-body mother about twenty years ago, when we were carving pumpkins out in the back yard. She’s having a good time carving her pumpkin’s face…and maybe getting out a little aggression too, LOL. My father is clearly enjoying the moment, too.
Me and Pa another year, with finished pumpkins on the front steps
Year after year, we’d all have a good time, and it’s an example of the kind of fun I’ve tried to create with my own kids as the years have passed.
Traditions are important. They provide a little bit of something to count on, year to year, when the landscape and the world keeps changing around us (as it inevitably does). We have these moments to recreate and fall back on, to re-center ourselves, bring us back to our roots, and reclaim a little of all the different times in our lives that we participated in them.
Of course traditions come in all forms, whether for other holidays, birthdays, or just things like apple-picking or preparing favorite recipes. Sometimes they are the bridge between people who have drifted apart, giving them a reason to reconnect.
Me around 25 years ago, sitting on the top of the “school bus shelter” Pa built at the bottom of the driveway, kept company by a giant pumpkin and the little orange cat my parents took in
I love traditions, and I’ll probably be writing more about them – at least the ones I’ve cherished – in the future. But for now, since we’re at the end of October, I’ll stick with this one. Although time marches on, our traditions only have to disappear or change if we want them to.
What are some of your favorite autumn traditions, whether for Halloween or not?
The Pumpkin Farm Stand
Pumpkin farm stand on a gray autumn day
“No Spring, nor Summer beauty
hath such grace
As I have seen
in one Autumnal face.”
~John Donne
Beautiful colors of pumpkin to choose from this year…we picked a couple of larger, dark orange pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns, and I chose several of the smaller ones with interesting hues for our front steps.
With (American)Thanksgiving in November, we get lots of enjoyment (and decorating power!) out of the pumpkins…and as you can see from the photo, they are reasonably-priced. Even the big orange ones along the top were only $5.00.
Anyone else love visiting the pumpkin farm (or autumn stand?) I love seeing pictures of all the different ways the produce and items are displayed. Even with the season winding down, there is still so much to see and enjoy, and Nature sheds her colors in preparation for her long Winter’s sleep.
Enjoy the Journey
Photo: Santabanta.com
The Old Button Tin
My mother’s old button tin (a reused, 1950’s Christmas cookie tin), a box of threads and some old “Bondex” iron-on material from the 1960’s
When I was little, I was always fascinated, watching my mother sew. She could hand sew or sew on the machine.
To me it was magic. I learned in later years, that it was necessity. With seven kids to raise on just my father’s salary (at least until I was a teen and my mother started a second career in the insurance industry and worked her way up to a CPCU license), it was more economical for my mother to craft many of our clothes and other items by hand than it was to buy them ready-made. Continue Reading…
On Handling Adversity
The rising sun peeking from behind a red barn
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
~Maya Angelou
M. Reed McCall, Author 