Strings Attached (In Process)
Weekends of working at events, a few trips, gardening chores and a standing date with my sister and brother to watch episodes of Dexter each evening have kept me from my watercolor painting passion.
Sometimes summer is so full it gets in the way, and, so, by September I begin to look forward to the quiet seasons. By September, the last of the baseball games are played across the street from my house. The stadium lights will no longer remind me that bustle extends beyond my walls. Cars, filled with baseball fans and players, will leave the area, taking their enthusiastic noisemakers with them. The ice cream truck goes into storage, mercifully silencing the jangling looney tunes for a brief respite.
I’ll stop wrestling with my vegetable garden and let it give way to crisp brown-ness. No more rushing out to the tomato and pepper plants to find evening’s meal waiting to be prepped. Small reminders that summer is over will become more routine: when I pull up the lettuce plants, see the last of the gaillardia and primrose blooms, find the flies to be less numerous and insistent, and notice more fallen leaves along the gravel path in my backyard. What are your reminders?
Autumn is quiet for a person who doesn’t follow football. The sport heats up all around me, and save for the distant rumble from the college stadium and a few banal (yes, I said that) conversations at work, I won’t feel the tension that can come with Autumn football season.
Winter slips into place by November and then the remaining sounds of summer disappear. The skateboarders leave the skate park across the street next to the baseball fields. The adolescents take their raucous excitement and strident words juddering against the “f” word and go somewhere else. I wonder where? Perhaps to hone their vocabulary?
Will others feel the reprieve from summer’s chaos like I do?
But I’m afraid that the fall and winter months won’t be as unobtrusive as I like. The insistent clatter of the upcoming elections will intrude for one who doesn’t often disappear from in front of the computer. I’ll try harder during the quiet seasons this year to get away and seek out whatever life is going on during these next few months. First Thursday art crawls will go on, taking me downtown, reminding me that people get out and do things in the evenings! Hiking will be better tolerated in the softer weather as will walking the dogs.
And, if past fall and winter seasons are any standard, the clouds will roll in, blanket the sky and stay there, leaving some of us feeling blue, heavy and oppressed. Not me, though. I welcome the dimming of the too harsh summer light. I’ve got ample lighting in my little studio here.
His view: Autumn and the World Turns
For me, reminders that fall is approaching include concord grapes and apples at the local orchard stands, the transition to cool-weather crops in my garden, and the slow changes in air temperature.
What I love about fall is sleeping. The cool night air through my open window always feel wonderful. I could easily hibernate between now and April instead of just bored-out-of-my-mind daily dozing at work.
Hi,
Season is changing here as well, we are into Spring here in OZ, still a little cool at night and early morning, but beautiful days, Summer is just around the corner for us.
My favorite signs of autumn are Honey Crisp apples at the farmer’s market and snow atop the Olympics.
Honey crisp apples rock.
All the kids going back to school does it for me. And October 1st – the first day of 6 months that I have to use my light box (Seasonal Affective Disorder).
You said banal, but I like you anyway, because you said a lot of other nice “stuff.” Happy Autumn.
I’m so tired of gardening. Literally, I hate it now.
I planted corn, beans, squash, cucumbers, zucchini, potatoes, beets, and watermelon.
I had more corn than any 50 people could eat, because for some reason I thought that three seeds made one plant. (Dumb, I know.) Zucchini? If I never see one again for the rest of my life that’ll be just fine with me. I had so much of it that after three weeks my neighbor started hiding from me!
I had very few cucumbers, absolutely no beans, squash, or potatoes. I had like three beets, and two watermelon that, because I planted them so late, are at this time only about as big as a tennis ball, so they’ll be no good.
I despise gardening now. I suck at it.
Go pound sand.
love the painting.
i live in south floriduhhh. the only way we know that the season has changed is that melon is more expensive, and people who live up north say that they have to start wearing jackets.
Summer Chaos only leads into Fall Chaos for me
In Southern California, i garden year round, and the season change is mainly from dry to wet. But I’m really happy to hear there will be more time for water-coloring, and look forward to more Watercolor Fridays from you.
I don’t think I’d mind that too much, since gardening is such a passion for me. But the fall and winter will give me a respite, whereas, for you, you have to make time for the gardening all year. I’m planning on continuing with the watercolor Fridays, hoping it will spur me on.
Your painting is beautiful.
I love the fall, but mourn the passing of the year and the slide into ice and cold (my optimist/pessimest tug-of-war). You’re so right about walking now. It’s Saturday and a sunny, 68 degree, blue-sky day here in Illinois, so I’m signing off to go for a hike. Bye!
Hiking is especially wonderful in the fall. For me, it means fewer bugs and longer hikes because it’s cooler. I’ll start hiking more now and then it will be snowshoeing in the winter! Yay! Hope your hike was a delight.
I love autumn and winter, and this year I’ll get to celebrate the season with an October trip to Iowa with Mom. Now, granted, I’m taking her ashes back home for burial with Dad, but nonetheless – we always took an autumn trip, and I suspect the fact that she’s going “home” will be just fine with her. And I’ll get to see the fall colors.
Otherwise, autumn means the beginning of the end of the tourists on the Texas coast. By November they’ll be nearly gone, except for Christmas festivities, and then it’s blessed January and February. Quiet. Bird-filled. Crisp and empty. Heaven.
Remember Jimmy Buffett’s When the Coast is Clear? It’s the anthem of locals everywhere.
What a bittersweet trip to Iowa that will be. I’ve been in Iowa during the fall and it’s exquisite. The air is special and the scenery so full of color. It’s interesting how many people would describe the fall as being a “quiet” or “quieting” time. Thank goodness we live in places that have seasons.
Time seems to slow down in the fall. I don’t know if it’s the cold, dense air, or the fact that a week expands to ten days because that’s how long I can now go between lawn mowings. An annual trip to a local orchard brings bags of crisp apples, the kind you can’t find in any supermarket. And then Halloween — handing out candy to sweet little three-year-olds and hulking teenagers with facial hair. And of course, the used book sale at the local library — now that’s a dangerous thing.
I liked “jangling looney tunes” and “the distant rumble from the college stadium.” And I learned a new word: juddering. Thanks, SDS.
One of the things I miss most about living in Minnesota is that annual trip to pick apples on a beautiful, clear fall day. It’s a tradition I haven’t replaced here in Idaho. I always came home from the orchard feeling like I had been given a gift.
The mornings here are filled with what we call in Hindi “pink chill”. It is just beginning to chill, and hasn’t quite reached there yet. This is my favourite sign of autumn. As much as I wait for summer (yes, the Indian summer), I wait for this pinkness. It is so fresh, so welcoming.
Lovely image, Priya! I love to watch how the light changes as the seasons arrive. Perhaps people don’t notice anything other than leaves changing and a chill in the air, but it’s the changes happening to the sky that thrill me the most.