Song for Autumn

I am not ready for winter.  I am, to be honest, not yet ready for autumn and it is my favorite season.  I am not ready for Halloween.  I still feel like there is not enough sun warmth soaked into my bones.  Is this because I am getting old(er)?  Or is it because it was a crummy weather  summer in the NW?  Probably both.

The only real way to handle this growing cold weather apprehension is to meet it face on.  I need to remind myself all the things I love about autumn and the slow slide into winter.  I need to remind myself that I get a lovely gift in January and look forward to that time.  (I'm going to Africa again.)  So, here are a few of my favorite things about the autumn.

Leaves turning beautiful golden, red and russet colors and....

....really foggy days for walking ad thinking and breathing deeply....

....and making spiced cranberries for Thanksgiving and for gifting at Christmas.

I love finding abandoned bird's nests and adding them to my expanding collection.  They are so much easier to see once the leaves fall and I know the inhabitants have left for warmer climes further south.

All the autumn colors are especially wonderful at the cabin, where there are so many cedars and other evergreens to act as a foil for making the bright, fleeting hues pop.  It makes weekends spent there, cozy and snug, so beautiful and gives me something to look forward to all week long.

I love clear, frosty coooooold days.  They just pull me outside and make me want to explore.

I love the countdown to Christmas, especially lovely this autumn as all my children, their spouses and all the grands will be home with DH and me this special, special year.

And I love that my favorite poet, Mary Oliver, always has words that lift my heart and help me see things in a better light.

Song for Autumn 

In the deep fall
    don't you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
    the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
    freshets of wind? And don't you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
    warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
    inside their bodies? And don't you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
    the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
    vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
    its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
    the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

Almost Autumn (at the cabin)

The Labor Day weekend is fast approaching, but not as quickly as the 1st of September.  I can not get my mind wrapped around the idea that it is almost autumn.  In the early mornings I can smell it coming, that special smell that speaks of pumpkins and orange and golden leaves falling, of crisp nights and (hopefully) Indian Summer days.  But for right now, at the cabin, it is still summer.  It's green and sunny and warm.

The view from the front windows, down onto the dairy farm just across the river, is of wide green meadows and busy farmers making hay (while the sun shines!).

The daisies are in full, glorious bloom in wide swaths around the house....

....and the hollyhocks are taller than I am and bursting with blossoms.

But, soon, much too soon, the leaves will start to turn.  The maples will go all gold and orange, the larches will turn bright yellow and then all their needles will fall and the views from every window will be beautiful, but autumnal.  I am not ready for autumn.  I still feel like we didn't, really, get much of a summer and I am not ready for the long, gray days of November, December, January and on and on and on....

Even though the sunsets through the bare limbs of the stand of trees that marks the beginning of the road to the cabin are a wonder to behold....

....and the cabin will be all snugged in, with the maples turning spectacular colors all around.....

 

....and every weekend there will be many fishermen trying their skills in the river below the cabin, I am not ready. 

 And then much, much too soon, the frosts will come and the leaves will be gone.  The rains of November will be upon us.  

Just how soon will we have snow this year?  And how much will we have?  Will I be unable to get to the cabin for months at a time, like that miserable winter a few years back?  

I have to admit that as I get older,  I yearn more for the sun than ever before.  I want it to warm my skin and seep down into my bones.  I want flowers and birdsong and blue skies.  I will just have to  be grateful to be surrounded with a bounty of quiet beauty, even if it is of a colder, more subtle variety.

I will look forward to Christmas and having ALL my family home,  gathered together, and it will be a fine first Christmas for Rawlings---a fine Christmas for all of us.

But, really, isn't it much too soon for it to be autumn?

Art Journaling Catch-Up

I'm just going to post a few random pages from my journal. I have been enjoying my journal a lot the last few months and find myself doodling away in it or adding to previous postings more than I have ever done before. Any given spread never seems to be totally finished. I like the freedom to go back and add or edit at will. It is, after all, not chiseled in stone!

The leaves in the photo above all are from my garden.

I went to the Picasso Exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum in October and used Picasso's blue period as my inspiration for my pages in a collaborative art journal. We have been doing pages recently in colors, and this was the inspiration for my contribution to "Blue." By the way, it was an incredible exhibit and if you can find some way to go, do so! It's running through most of January, 2011.

Autumn is my favorite season of the year and I find I love working with those colors, which is odd because if you asked me my least favorite color I would immediately announce, "Orange." And yet....

I love Halloween!

These two spreads (above and below) are from journaling work I did at JournalFest in late October in Orly Avineri's class "Mapping Me." I really enjoyed the class and I'm going to take another of Orly's classes next spring at ArtFest.

This is a pastel I did in Carla Sonheim's class at JournalFest. We had only five pastel colors and our fingers and an eraser. It was fun and surprisingly effective.

And a River Ran Through It

My little cabin is on the north fork of the Stillaguamish River. The Stilly is what I see looking out the front windows of the cabin. You can hear it passing by when you are outside. Since my property is what is called "high bank", I can't just walk right out to the river bank, but I do overlook it from all of my 15 acres. The Stilly is what gives my piece of the woods its character. I can honestly say a river runs through it.
Yesterday was a gorgeous, Pacific Northwest October Saturday, and Nonie and I decided that it would be lovely to take a drive east towards Darrington, to see what we could see. What we saw was autumn along the Stillaguamish. When you head east on Highway 530 from Arlington, the Stilly is on your left (north) side the whole way. Here and there you get little peeks at it while you drive, in other places the view opens up and you see the river flowing through the the wide valley. All along the way the trees are turning a most delicious spectrum of color, mostly golds, and the blue sky just set everything off perfectly. We saw snug little farms tucked up alongside the hills and we saw tall, tall stands of evergreens, and through it all the Stilly threaded its way west toward Puget Sound. We stopped at a prime fishing hole about 10-12 miles west of Darrington and took a walk along the river. There were several fshermen trying for a salmon but while we didn't see any fish caught, we did see some very happy men enjoying a gorgeous day practicing the high art of fly casting in the most beautiful setting I can imagine. (Sorry, Norman Maclean, I think the north fork of the Stilly is as beautiful, if not more so, than the Big Blackfoot River and I have had the honor to walk the riverbanks of both.) For me, Norman Maclean said it best:

"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.
The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the
basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under
the
rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

"I am haunted by
waters."

----A River Runs Thought It, by Norman Maclean