Monday, November 7, 2011

Wait - STILL???!?!?!?!!

Don't ya just love it when they use too much punctuation? Hee hee hee. Anyway, take a gander at THIS why don'tchya:



Proof, kids, that I'm in a land of crazy tall trees. And that since the last time I posted... in October ... when Autumn was just getting started... that crazy season called AUTUMN has been in full swing ever since.

IT IS STILL AUTUMN OUT HERE, FOLKS!

Like seriously leafy, rustly, orange green and gold-y autumn. Like, put on a sweater and walk through a muddy park and come back home and build a fire to salve your rosy cheeks and leaky nose: AUTUMN. Back home, you see, it lasted but a week or two.

The trees back home are noble, and strong, but they have no taste for a lasting "change". Colors come, trees start to get all pretty and tarted up, and then WHAMM-O there goes a big ol snowstorm to just strip all that pretty pretty off the branches and smash it down in the mud where it belongs. Then NOBODY gets to wear just a princess costume for halloween and EVERYBODY has to wear the same puffy parka we wore to school yesterday and trick or treating becomes a lame excersize in pithy explanations (I'm a pirate under my parka!) and begging for candy from homeowners who'd rather not be opening their doors again to let all that icy air inside.

Here though, whoa. I knew it'd be different, but not like this! I started getting antsy when the news teams started reporting "peak leaf day is tomorrow!" for certain parts of the state. OH dear. I missed it. Maybe next year. Whatever.

We went out anyway, and it was spectacular. Then three days later, went out again. STILL spec-frikkin-tacular! Today? there's a four story hardwood outside my window turning orange with all the glory of the sun every afternoon and it sears my retinas and it squeezes my cellophane heart and it's just a week away from whipping out a giant, sparkly feather boa and singing showtunes at top volume up and down the street. IT's THAT GORGEOUS!

and has been for weeks.

And it appears to be not even really half over, as we have several trees in the area still shy-ly clining to their dusky, dark greens. The little ones, the fancy purple specimens and the trees that come with those big glittery eyelashes have all sung their songs for the year. I pick their leathery leaves from my car everytime I go out.

But the big ones, the biggest ones, the ones intermingling with the evergreens and the historical stuff... they're just getting warmed up. If you listen closely, on these 40 degree nights, you can press your ear to the windows and hear them: ahem-ahemming and getting ready for their big solos.

Autumn is amazing out here. We've had rain again and wind and cold. There were some big old snow drops that pummeled everything west of me for miles and miles and well past the delineation of this time zone. But here, in my little corner of this brand new space ship I'm calling home, here it's still autumn.

It's STILL autumn. And it's a whole season. And it takes TIME to get through. And it involves fireplaces, and big squares of sunshine on the carpet, and sun-drenched hair getting mussed up by the wind, and woven wool coats and big shiny buttons. It's messy, and muddy, and tangled. It's both warm and cold. It's exotic, gentle reader.

It is so wonderful. As it is full, you see, of wonder.

1 comment:

The Hurli-Fam said...

:)

(I know, it's a lame comment, but it's all I have to say about that post)