Dear November,
You are a velvet pouch of rubies and garnets, of golden topaz and magical emeralds. I try to inhale you, deep into my lungs and into my spirit. Your breath of cool, night frost turns to fog in the early morning. Comforted by your crisp embrace, I drive along country roads with my eyes filled by beauty and my heart filled with hope.
write something positive–
something about amber leaves
or silver cobwebs
the smell of books and brewing coffee,
or 3:00 am labyrinthine logic
write about her soft whisper
and long shadows on the bricks
as the sun sets on another long October day
raccoons in midnight trees
flowers on tables
beautiful places and rambling thoughts
dark books and burning candles
morning sun rays wake the day
The real adventure, he thought, is the flow of time; it’s as much adventure as anyone could wish.
Excerpt from The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler, 1985
we pulled the leaves from the dill plants and the night fell with its fragrance
with their humble happiness, the pumpkins beckoned
there was a bit of melancholy about the place; the distressed beauty of willful neglect but also a prescience in the way the sun fell in random slices through the thick afternoon clouds
she laughed when I ran outside to shoot the morning frost on the leaves and so I scampered, crunching the grass, taking the shots quickly, leaving an exhaled breath behind me
feel the thin space between the living and the departed today—
listen for their names on the wings of the changing winds
Leaves stick to the bottom of our boots and gather in the kitchen where the shoes are haphazardly discarded. But the leaves, in all of their brittle and scampering leafiness, travel throughout the house on the edges of a passing breeze— resurfacing on a worn blanket or in the corner by a basket of pine cones.
August 1850
As my eye rested on the blossom of the meadow–sweet in a hedge, I heard the note of an autumnal cricket, and was penetrated with the sense of autumn. Was it sound? or was it form? or was it scent? or was it flavor? It is now the royal month of August.
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
Excerpt from the book: The Journal 1837-1861 by Henry David Thoreau
there are times when we search far
and discover what we needed was in fact—
near
This year we are having a particularly beautiful autumn. When I walk with Juliet, the red maple leaves blanket the roads and the grass and the paths we pass. Rain makes the streets slippery—we skate in a stop and start motion; soft red velvety leaves stick to my boots.
The nights are damp and dark with a fine mist rising, hovering at eye level. When I take Jules out at midnight, I note the crickets in the otherwise still silence of that hour. I wonder, have I ever noticed that crickets sound into the month of November? Have I ever inhaled the damp night deeply into my lungs before this year?
Then there are the mornings. The early twilight of dawn, drenched in thick fog welcomes me with open arms while my eyes are still tired with sleep. Has it been like this always? I don’t know. It feels, so much sharper this year. I feel the cold in my bones and my senses on high alert. I want to memorize each tree, each outline. The falling leaves form an impression on the road and I stare at the contour, tracing it with my eyes, touching it with my cold hand.
The moments are fleeting, quick and also slow, slick, thick with anticipation and the promise of the coming winter. A fluttering of huge wild wings escape into the fog and disappear behind dark branches; perhaps to return again during the day when it clears, or perhaps to become a memory floating softly like the red leaves onto the ground—one of many, lost under the impending first snows.
spanishwoods 