Tag Archives: musings

The Things I Want to Remember

photo by Sylvia

i want to remember the way the light was filtered by the reeds that day we walked along the brick-lined streets and the warmth of a well-loved dog, her smell and her kisses and her wagging tail and the sound of the crunching leaves under my old boots and the rain that fell on our heads as we knelt to watch the vole burrow deeply under a sodden log

photo by Sylvia
photo by Sylvia

instagram.com/wolfnevemama/

Excerpt from Thoreau

photo by Sylvia

After a rain-threatening morning it is a beautiful Indian summer day, the most remarkable hitherto and equal to any of the kind. Yet we kept fires in the forenoon, the warmth not having got into the house. It is akin to sin to spend such a day in the house.

from The Journal 1837-1861 by Henry David Thoreau

photo by Sylvia
photo by Sylvia

instagram.com/wolfnevemama/

Autumn

photo by Sylvia

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.  

photo by Sylvia

instagram.com/wolfnevemama/