The nights are cooler and the days are breezier now, two signs that reveal that the change of seasons is upon us. After a much hotter summer than usual, that left me feeling like a wet dish mop, most of the time, I welcome the way that nature rearranges herself. Of course, by January, we will long for the heat of this current time, and we will bemoan the fact that we will have to pay to stay warm. All that aside, however, winter is the time that most of us start or complete embroidery, quilting, and other projects. Both autumn and winter are times of hope and anticipation, and they offer a sense of peace.
When I was a child, I so looked forward to autumn. I felt so grown up to go to the store to pick out school supplies. My mother would take me to Pandora Mills on Canal St. in Manchester, NH and would buy at least a couple of wool outfits for me. One year, a favorite outfit of mine was a black turtleneck sweater and a Tartan plaid skirt with a large, fancy safety pin to secure the fringed, frontal overlap.
Of course, the wool sweaters and skirts were destined to be my favorites and I would attempt to wear them the first day of school. When I did that, I really suffered. They were just too hot until much later in the fall!
I would be given a new lunch box, too, during those days before hot lunches at school. There was not much variance in the edibles brought to school: a peanut butter or tuna sandwich and Oreo cookies or chocolate chip cookies, if mother had baked. I’d buy a carton of milk every day and was given the task of collecting money from other students for their milk.
Autumn First, Winter Second
The delights of autumn and winter in New England are almost immeasurable. I still love biting into a fresh apple straight from the orchard. My favorite smells in the world are that of an apple pie baking in the oven, or maybe the odor of hot Molasses Spice Cookies, or the pungent aroma of the Balsam Fir trees near the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Canada, where we visited last October.
I love the wind that blows the laundry dry. The wind goes where it will and where it must and travels the earth to be breathed by all living things. Sometimes, the wind seems to have its own voice, whistling, whining, and chanting in the night as we lay awake. The cool autumn wind rattles the windows and reminds us that soon snow will be banking up against the house, to help keep us warm.
If my descriptions have made you long for the time when Snowy Owls will easily locate their prey of field mice on top of the crusty snow, here is a photo for you to remember another facet of the season.
My son, James Gorham, and his dog, Emma, after a Rhode Island snowfall.
Never mind, I am going to go back to dreaming of snowflakes, gently falling to the earth in a magical dance. The honking geese are on the wing. Winter is a comin’ in.
Patricia Cummings
