Off Season

Monday

Properly speaking, Huntington is not a resort community. However, the harbor itself is a resort-type recreation area, filled with beaches, moorings, and artifacts which support summer leisure activities. Those are largely abandoned and ignored in the heart of winter each year, although depending on the actual weather some hardy souls continue to use boats when possible. Furthermore, as the temperatures continue colder, many of the older residents migrate south for a while, to be joined by families in a month when recently culturally iconic “winter break” arrives.
My own happiness with such a fallow period is limited to enjoying silence _ leaf blowers have been stored for a month or so. Once in a while I will head for an empty town beach, or _ if snow cover is limited as it is this year _ to empty fields and woods in other parks. Pedestrians have also been culled to the hardy few, hardly recognizable in heavy attire even though I have seen the regulars almost every day for a long time now.

Tuesday

I love to go where crowds avoid

Beach in winter, woods in rain

Meditate or just enjoy

Nature singing pure again

Romantic poets felt the same

Artists wandered empty hills

Mountains, seacoasts, blasted plains

Freed of shallow cultured ills.

Alone so happy, yet compelled

To soon return where I belong

I seek companionship as well

Madness balanced by the throng.

Wednesday

Restrooms locked. Picnic area cleared. Lifeguard chair removed, toll booth vacant. Mostly, sand and playground are devoid of people as well. On nice days, or if cabin fever has built too high, small children very bundled run around the open beach. Every day _ rain, shine, sleet, snow, bitter wind, or raging storm _ someone will be in the parking lot, often not leaving warm dry car, letting their dog or dogs experience the outdoors.
Off season even in truly seasonal places has permanent residents. I may fantasize that they are even more deserted than here, but actually recreation areas are all equivalent. Better outerwear has made outdoors year-round activity accessible to everyone. I know that is a good thing. I wish more folks would take advantage of it for our collective mental sanity even as I gripe about how there is nowhere to be alone except in my own house.

Thursday

“I wish we were going away again this year,” grouses Joan, for the millionth time.

“I’m perfectly happy to stay here,” I reply. “Besides, it’s been mild. Certainly better than last winter.”

“I can’t stand the cold.”

“Dress warmer.”

“I miss flowers growing.”

“Get some more indoor plants.”

“It gets dark too soon.”

“No different than anywhere we would go on vacation in the Northern Hemisphere.”

“I can’t believe all the people who are still here.”

“Me neither.”

“I hate winter.”

“I kind of enjoy it.”

Irreconcilable differences.

Friday

In spite of modern materials and paints, marine life such as barnacles still manages to cling to or thrive on submerged hulls, cutting efficiency. High tech engines need service and recalibration. Birds and dirt manage to coat exposed surfaces. An expensive annual off-season ritual involves hauling craft out of water, power washing everything, wrapping tightly in shrink wrap, and stashing them somewhere safe until spring. This reduces shoreline land, but waterfowl probably approve more open water and flyways.
I know Iapprove more open water. Summer harbor can resemble a junkyard, filled with odd detritus that people convince themselves they might want to
use sometime, but rarely do. Winter’s crowded storage lots are an inch from actually being junkyards, sometimes literally if anxious owners who have finally had enough are unable to unload their “investments.”

Saturday

Greatly simplified, until a few centuries ago, Northern Hemisphere civilization was organized by season. Agricultural production forced sowing, growth, harvest, and fallow at certain times of year. That other favorite activity _ war _ was generally bounded by when the peasants were available and when the ground was dry _ which usually meant it was only waged in summer. Washington, after all, went into “winter quarters” at Valley Forge, as did the British at Philadelphia and New York.
Less than a hundred years later, with mechanized agriculture providing possibility, the American Civil War inaugurated our current era of any battle any time _ today from climate-controlled machines. Rural populations the world over have migrated to cities that know no season at all. There is no universally valid cycle of planting or harvest, nor on-season, nor off-season for anything else. Tropical bananas, or tomatoes and strawberries grown in greenhouses almost anytime anywhere, are harbingers of what will come.
My wife, for one, would not care. She’d love to live in a spaceship or mall at a constant 72 degrees exposed to exactly 12 hours of sunlight each day. Humans evolved in relatively climate-steady Africa, so any yearning for seasons is hardly instinctual.
I wonder, though, whether our 24×365 world is corrosive to civility. Until civilization itself adapts, I think many people miss enforced down time. Being constantly needed and always on call is possibly necessary and rewarding for parents of young children. It is hardly a benefit when working for a faceless corporation.
I’m not trying to bring back a golden past. Good riddance to days of slaves and peasants chained to land and sun! But I do not believe our individuals and institutions have yet come up with the right replacement for us to live relatively happy and balanced lives.

Sunday

Hecksher Park also has its off-season, although this winter it may seem more like off-weather. This playground being deserted probably has more to do with wet and clouds on this relatively mild day. In any case, at almost every park, people have decided they will be happier and healthier if they get out and jog or run or walk or ride. It remains a rare day indeed when there are no people in any given open space.
People driven by media fads are as much fun to watch as any ducks responding to instinct. While I recognize that I am just one of the herd, I always manage to maintain some spirit of detached observer. I mean, I may make gentle mock of obsessed overweight seniors grimly striding their triple rounds of the pond, but here I am obsessively taking pictures and writing obscurely. The duality of being in and out at the same time _ whether as part of a crowd or as part of nature _ is one of the grand joys of the game of life.

January Frost

Monday

Last year, rosebuds had been blasted black by mid-October, permanent snow-cover settled in shortly thereafter, and by now everyone was fervently awaiting a January thaw that never arrived. In contrast, Huntington Harbor’s first hard freeze is predicted in the next few days. Roses, weeds, birds and squirrels take it in stride. People worry.
Averages, like the Equator and hope, are useful imaginary mental tools that help us make sense of and survive in a chaotic universe. But meteorologists, mathematicians, physicists, and digital wizards who mistake their equations and models for reality are as dangerous to our mental health as any other completely certain religious fanatics. We need to live as squirrels or birds, not as models. We ought not waste too much time (although some time may be useful) worrying about temperature and rainfall variations or limited projections of possible futures.

Tuesday

We dream first flakes, white whisper, settle soft

Instead sleet sting, cold chop, deep drift

Incongruous

Wisdom’s beauty simmers slow

Reconciliation

Wednesday

Even at twelve degrees, underlying ground remains warm. Only a skim of newly-formed ice coats the sweetwater pond. Tender green weeds and leaf buds have been flash frozen but so far show little damage. As with many fatal trauma victims, the full effects of injury will only show up later, either when plants wilt and shrivel in the first thaw, or later in spring when blossoms and leaves fail to develop.
I admit that although I enjoy seasons, this unusual late onset of winter suits me. Although there is still plenty of time for cold and snow, days are already notably longer as spring rushes closer. Both artificial calendars and solar activity increasingly signal more benevolent weather in the future. I snuggle into my parka, content with the way things are going.

Thursday

Joan and I watch bandit pigeons and more desirable cardinals, bluejays, and woodpeckers diving, strutting, and chasing each other for a chance at the birdfeeder. “There were a lot more birds when I was young,” she remarks.

I groan sarcastically. “Oh, yeah, and the winters were harsh, the summers long , and spring filled with fresh flowers and no showers.”

“Well, I remember deep snows.”

“But that’s the trouble with the past,” I note. “Since we have sixty-odd years of seasons, we select out the few that made an impression. And that’s before we begin exaggerating.”

“I guess. But winters were colder, I know the snow was intolerable even to my parents when I was little.”

“I’m sure you remember it that way. But the last two years just now have been no picnics. Our kids will surely remember them as being as bad as anything you can think up.”

“With global warming, that may be the only snows they remember anyway.”

“There you go again. Why does everyone always want immediate apocalypse? I doubt our immediate descendants will live through either an ice age or a fire age. Things change a bit more slowly than we expect.”

“I don’t know,” Joan says stubbornly, “last year to this year is a pretty drastic change. And the storms around the world seem to be getting a lot worse.”

“I’ll agree with you there,” I admit. “Who knows?”

We turn back as the birds suddenly scatter, frightened away by the neighbor’s prowling old yellow cat, which seems not to notice the cold at all.

Friday

Each season has nearly unique lighting effects. Winter light is affected by dry atmosphere, ice particles in high transparent cloud layers , and low sun angle. The lovely pastels which result are easily contrasted with stark bare branches. Real photographers capture it better, but anyone can observe just as well by simply taking some time.
We each choose how we wish to focus our spare moments. Some try to connect with the electronic networks, being aware of sparrows falling in far off lands and wondering what it may mean. I prefer to force myself into the cold, enjoying solitary moments at a deserted beach with only gulls for company. Well, it is true that there is a scattering of cars back in the parking lot where people eat lunch or talk on their phones _ Long Island is a crowded place. But I had the sands, the shells and the sky to myself for a few delicious moments.

Saturday

No day is absolutely average, no season repeats exactly. We think our perception of time is reality, and our lives are the measure of normal. But nature moves more slowly than any of us. Except, of course, for its occasional massive demonstrations.
From the standpoint of seasons, and years, and centuries, humankind is like those speeded pictures of scurrying ants, rushing about building mud mounds, fighting, and moving on. Once in a while the mound is flattened by buffalo, or flooded, or attacked by an anteater, but generally it comes and goes regardless of monsoon, snow, and chill.
We consider our works as mighty and potentially eternal. We proudly point to the Pyramids or to the ruins of the Colosseum as proof. Yet we could as easily remember drowned Alexandria, volcano-choked Pompeii, and the vine-covered ruins of the Mayan peninsula. All destroyed, all deserted, all irrelevant to the humans that came afterward.
That is why most scenarios _ especially psychological scenarios _ of the future are wrong. People may or may not fight to preserve Venice, Shanghai, or New York. They may simply move inland a bit as the seas rise. They might even move undersea as the temperature and winds rise. They will look back at the ruins and think it applies to them as little as the Pyramids do to you or me.
We are aware finally that the climate itself changes faster than our ancestors thought, even though they lived through such events as the Little Ice Age. Only the perception of average stability is completely false. A big volcanic outburst will chill the world for a while, unusual sun activity may heat it, and a flip of the magnetic field would wreak merry hell on our comfortable illusions.
So enjoy the media comparisons of today to the average, worry about lack of rain or too much wind if you will, but none of it really is as it seems. And the future is as unknown as ever it was.

Sunday

Short sharp January freeze thawed already. Seems strange to see the harbor so empty, prepared for bad weather that seems perpetually predicted next week. People are equally confused, some in heavy coats, others jogging in shorts. Plants as uncertain as humans, but ducks are probably just happy to have so much open water.
Weather announcers try to scare everyone, particularly with wind chill factor. Since there is always some kind of breeze along the shoreline, I mostly ignore everything except a howling gale, and base my outerwear protocol on absolute temperature at the house. I find that dressing properly, no matter what the season, is required for maximum enjoyment of my daily stroll.

Resolutions

Monday

Reality simply exists, without volition nor plans. Perhaps “simply” is a poor choice of wording for something so infinitely variable. Sky, clouds, water, all things on above and below this thin shell of habitat which confines life. Another day, another year, another bit of imagination applied.
Resolutions are traditionally made once a year. Usually one vows to be better (never worse) in some way. And sometimes that intention is kept for almost a week. Our lives are momentary and constructed of complete instants one after another. If I am to be better, I must be so each second. The sky, clouds, and water may not care, but I should.

Tuesday

Resolutions seem so strong

Don’t last long

A wish is just a wish

To really change

We must exchange

Instant soul for soul

Become another

But why bother

What should matter

Is more laughter

Joy creating joy

Love inflation

Appreciation

Day to better day

Strive and cope

Live with hope

Wednesday

There are people who cannot figure how to enjoy a “nasty” day. Fog and drizzle following sleet with about the first average temperature of December. Ducks don’t need resolutions to handle weather. Most waterfowl have already followed instinct to migrate to appropriate locations. Others _ not this little bufflehead _ have further retreated to some leeward cove to escape misty wind.
My resolutions no longer follow years, or even seasons, and are more limited to each day. Mine was “get out of the house, take a walk, snap some pictures, and think about what to write tomorrow.” If I am lucky my resolutions may harden into a schedule that is nearly instinctual. Then, hopefully, I can be more like this tiny creature and apparently frolic about no matter the clouds and temperature.

Thursday

Joan and I out with friends, finishing up salads, nibbling bread. “Any resolutions?” asks Janet.

“More exercise.” “Better Diet.” “Spend time with kids.” “Travel somewhere.” And, to laughter, “Make it to another year!”

“But that’s what it does come down to, isn’t it?” I ask. “Our resolutions get a little shorter and more precise as we get older. More personal, less idealistic.”

“Sure, I’m not about to change the world,” smiles Joe. “I doubt I’m even about to change myself.”

“Agree with that,” I add, “sometimes just getting out of bed and doing something is about all the resolution I can actually do any given day.”

“None of us are that bad, yet,” protests Joan. “We still stay active. I have projects and I know Janet has some as well. There’s gardens and dinners and …”

“Yep,” agrees Joe, “Lots and lots of chores. Don’t sound much like resolutions to me.”

“Well, I guess people who made it this far are pretty much in the groove they want to be in,” notes Janet.

“Or have to be in,” adds Joe darkly.

“Well, I don’t care much,” Joan insists. “There’s lots to do, that’s the point.”

“Don’t you want to change anything?” Janet inquires.

“Nah, not much,” say Joe and I almost simultaneously.

“Well, you should.”

“Maybe, but we’ve put in our time. No guilt. Just enjoy the year and hope we get a few more.”

“Yeah, exactly,” I say as the entrees arrive, “Carpe diem because we sure don’t know how many more diems we’re gonna get to carpe.”

Friday

Shiny new year, bright with promise, filled with hope, casting off old fears… But tides roll as always, sunset and sunrise cycle as before, darkling season remains. Individuals and entire species do what they must to survive, one day at a time. Plants and animals know nothing of new year, or promise, or hope.
Real magic is not in artificial calendar resets, but in the very fact that there is continuity. Life rolls on through tides, days and nights, seasons without end. We alone perceive the connection, and assign imaginary demarcations of years or eras or eons. Our magic is in creating intertwined stories all the way back to an imagined beginning of the universe, or, for that matter, to this same calendar day, exactly one arbitrary human year ago.

Saturday

God and the universe need no resolutions _ what was, was; what is, is; what will be, will be. Only a sense of alternative futures leads to plans, fears, hopes. Some life may dimly sense choice, but most is blind existence, instinct, or training. No rock, tree or bacteria resolves to change for the better or worse. Only in human imagination do rabbits swear to outwit hunters.
We are deeply identical to all life in chemical composition, genes, attributes. Objectively, our differences are trivial or nonexistent. Yet we are quantitatively and qualitatively removed from nature, in infinite ways. “Higher” animals may know fear, but I do not believe they are aware of beauty. A mighty list of such anomalies would include art, writing, engineering, good, and evil.
So I study the natural world, but what should I learn, what should I apply? I am so like and so unlike a blade of grass, an insect, a clam, you. What does a gypsy moth _ fighting for survival against terrible odds, decimating forests, threatening its own species by destroying its necessary ecology _ teach me? Is such doomed behavior inevitable? What could one moth do? How much do I resemble that moth?
My contemplations realize that no answers exist, for answers, like choices, are human constructs. There is only tension, resolution, outcome. Preserving balance is a game of which only we are aware. Does that make it less real? I think not. Appreciating the game may be one of the higher goals of our consciousness.
I am most unnatural. In all the universes that ever are or might be, I am unique. In my self-absorbed being, I feel important. I may understand that feeling to be wrong, but just by understanding it is wrong, I prove it is true. A lovely, illogical game rolling in syncopation with our magnificent perception of time’s tapestry.

Sunday

Nature continues brimming with infinite wonders. Sun rises unnoticed, winds blow evoking only wishes that they become more mild. Crows flap from branch to branch with raucous calls, above squirrels chasing each other ceaselessly. Only the scents of the activities of people remain. Thus it seems it was always and will always be. Yet this entire world is a fragile slice of time with nature and people appearing briefly on a tiny stage.
I dare not resolve to spend more time in wonder. Part of the mystery is that I cannot. There are practical things to do, limits to meditation. I am a microscopic part of the moving pageant, and if I stand still regarding how magnificent the show appears I will only be trampled by the passing parade. But once in a while, each day, I must try to find a quiet space and continue to marvel at all there is, and be grateful I can continue to do so.

Birthday!

Monday

Bedecked tree in deep woods on the Nature Conservancy’s Upland Farms. Winter Solstice the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, appropriate time for a new year via the Romans, Druids, Christianity, and Western European colonialism. In about a week it will be “2016 CE,” a world standard ferociously enforced by computers.
We are one, at least in aging digitally together. Not long ago, hardly anyone knew how old they were, or when their birth date might be. If you survived childhood, you became an adult. If surviving thirty or so years of adulthood you became an ancient. Years were measured in passage of the season and collection of taxes, and otherwise left everyone unaffected. Now, we calculate our calendar age to the microsecond, tie our “secret equivalent age” to biometrics, and have a grand vision of what must be done in each annual cycle. Sure, we each have our own birthdays, but Earth, as always, provides the real downbeat.

Tuesday

Ok, folks, all together, one, two, three:

Happy solstice to you

Happy solstice dear Terra

Happy solstice to you.

How old are you now?

We just can’t believe that!

Happy Solstice to you!

Now everybody make a wish while Terra tries to blow out all our emissions ….

Wednesday

Last winter this day freezing and snow, this winter nearly sixty and fog. The land does not know date nor season nor weather. The land did not know trilobites nor dinosaurs nor people. Most inhabitants of the land just recognize it is daytime and survive until darkness. Only humans compare one year to another.
Ancient Greeks _ and most other religions _ assigned no birthdate to their gods because that would be certain blasphemy. Prophets, on the other hand, are often dated by year _ which is difficult because true prophets are often not recognized until they are well along in years, and even in literate cultures born vaguely “in the fifth year of the reign of good king Maniac.” Assigning a specific birthday is impossible, and generally evolves by convenient convention. Yet, here we are, celebrating one “birthday” after another, and happy for doing so.

Thursday

Joan was once again trying to fit our celebration of Greg’s birthday into the complicated holiday schedules of everyone involved. “He always did get cheated, you know,” she says. “Only five days before Christmas, everyone forgets and merges them together.”

“Oh, I know. My grandmother was an actual Christmas baby. One party and, of course, the presents all jumbled up. Much better to be born on the other end of the calendar, June or July.”

“Too hard to plan,” she laughs.

“In a few years, I’m sure that everyone will actually be timing things exactly. Maybe they are now, for all I know.”

“What I hated were the cutoffs for school _ that you had to be so many years old by, say, January 1.”

“That’s the real problem. Years in general. How old you are _ especially at 5 or six _ should really be measured in months or days by the calendar. Not to mention that everyone develops differently. Still, I thought that someone nearer a year older always had a big advantage in sports and maybe in achievement.”

“You’re awful yourself, these days,” she accuses. “You always round up. You say you’re 69 when you’re still 68. Nobody does that.”

“I round up everything, expenses and years. I’ve consistently found that more useful.”

“Let’s see now,” she returns to the calendar. “What about Wednesday, after he’s done work?”

Friday

Warm fog and showers unable to satisfy eccentric cultural longing for white coating on the ground. ‘Tis the season of extravagant expectations _ family, love, bonuses, gifts, myths, anything at all. Now that all other needs and whims are more or less instantly satisfied, what remains are holidays on steroids.
I’ll spare you the “I was happy with a yo-yo” stories; we were not deprived, but major kid stuff was reserved for Christmas,
and there was a lot less of it. Our parents did not treat a car or new appliance as a gift _ those were major expenses that involved planning and penny-pinching. I see people infinitely more goods, but none happier than we were back in “the good old days.”

Saturday

The natural cycle for life on the surface is the sun. Hawks and squirrels roam the day, Owls and raccoons the night. We are advised of our natural circadian rhythm, and most of us are forcibly reminded to sleep periodically each twenty four hours. Day and night are probably most of what many animals are aware of.
On the other hand, bacteria, which own the earth. presumably don’t much care if there is light or not. Fish and shellfish are probably far more affected by tides. Inhabitants of the deep sea never notice sunlight at all. An insect cycle may be complete in less than an afternoon, the prototypical active time of a mayfly.
Humans have invented measurement. Days pass into numbers and the moon waxes and wanes and the seasons warm and chill down or dry up and rain. We plop them into proper places on a calendar, find how close we are to solstices or arbitrary year end. We annotate our own place in these records, when we have precisely checked off another three hundred sixty five.
Even more intriguing, people have fashioned metaphors. One of the most complex, at least in European-influenced cultures, is that a year is like our lives. Like the year we are born helpless and nearly dormant, then thrust and blossom into grand and beautiful virility, then slowly dry and finally disappear. A folklore version of Ontology recapitulating Philology.
Yet all that is false. Years don’t exist, except in our minds. Our lives and growth and achievements are not at all at the same pace or with the same attributes as the environments of the northern hemisphere. We know that our consciousness exists in the moment, but we always seek some deeper pattern.

Sunday

After the excitement of a wonderful holiday, the slight let-down and then a final remaining glow. After much work and worry, the house is all decorated, the lights cheering the foggy air, the presents exchanged and (mostly) properly appreciated. Then everyone goes home, another year older, another set of memories layered on the old ones.
So one of our religions has had yet another birthday, the sun has passed solstice, soon the calendars will change to recognize the facts, and we all feel, somehow, a little more aged than we did a few weeks ago. Even the mild weather has been unable to hide that winter is ready to swoop in at any moment. I’m not a person who ever hated the holidays, but I did get more keyed up in the past than I do now. Much to be grateful for, of course, but that has fortunately been true every day of the last year for me.

Seasons Sonatas

Monday

Nature always appears harmonious. After all, people have evolved attuned over tens of thousands of years. Yet there is also a marked flexibility that somehow makes desert, swamp, ocean, jungle, savannah, woods, and whatever else beautiful to properly adjusted outlooks. Art may attempt to capture that harmony, or may challenge it, or (in the best work) somehow do both at the same time.
Our musical tastes are formed early, and I hardly appreciate classical. Yet even in the early jazz music I love, I miss a great deal because I am not a musician. My greatest fault, as in many things, is in not paying adequate attention. I know the beginning of Chopin’s moonlight sonata quite well, but no matter how many times I listen, the rest just blurs into one long piano relaxation. Not unlike how I often experience scenery and other important environments in my life.

Tuesday

Sonata ought to be a song

That murmurs, glistens soft along

Shouts demanding in our ear

Concentrate on what we hear

–

Winter swirls some icy ways

Snow can’t brighten shorter days

Disaster looms a constant dread

Disruptions whisper stay in bed

–

Some will brace for bitter cold

March forth challenged to be bold

Others dream of sweeter times

Wish to wake in warmer climes

–

Me, I’m torn, I like to go

Examine purity of snow

But other hours I like best

To just accept my enforced rest

Wednesday

Cable provides a music channel called “Songs of the Seasons.” Unsurprisingly, these are mostly pop tunes with lots of words to clue the audience. Classical music suffers from only providing titles. Nobody would associate “March of the Wooden Soldiers” with Christmas except for its use in a few movies, and Nutcracker would be just a sequence of pretty melodies without the ballet costumes and handy program guide.
I sit here and enjoy the ways colors blend together, or subtly contrast, always in a different kaleidoscopic way depending on where I look or how I vary my focus. In such magical stillness, I may recall one seasonal tune or another, which are irrelevant to this moment. I would insist that this overall experience is very much like that of closely listening to a sonata or symphony. Abstract, harmonious, challenging, soothing and much more, all at the same time, all constructed by the marvelous trillions of neurons that provide me with my being.

Thursday

Standard carols echo around crowds here at the mall. I’m sitting in a little alcove of chairs, waiting for Joan to finish up at Macys. Conversations of others doing the same thing rise around, as I pick out fragments.

“These songs sure bring back memories, don’t they?”

“Some of them, I guess. I can’t stand some of the cynical newer ones they keep putting on.”

“Yeah, I’m more partial to Bing Crosby and Sinatra myself. But I guess they have to move with the times.”

“Why? They don’t care about the times anywhere else. This is all just nostalgia to make old people feel like spending money for grandkids.”

“My grandkids sure don’t know them like I did. I think they’re more familiar with car and beer ad jingles.”

“Oh, yeah, and forget hymns. Why, when I was their age we had them every Sunday, right out of the hymnal, had to memorize them all.”

“Well, we believed. It meant something back then.”

“Should mean something now. Damn political correctness. Why can’t we just be happy that we took over the planet and let it at that.”

“Not much Christmas spirit, there?”

“Humbug yourself. It’s true, though.

Friday

Crows cawing only birdsong, but steady wind whispers through trees, dead grasses rustle, waves slap shore. Human sounds accrete all around _ whistling of boat rigging, low rumble of jets low overhead heading for landing at JFK, tires and rasping engines of trucks making last-minute holiday deliveries, and incessant whine of leaf blowers. Humans are, sometimes unfortunately, part of nature too.
Any true seasonal sonata would include that. Probably we wouldn’t go to the lengths that Spike Jones gleefully pasted over tunes, but time of year is infallibly marked aurally by our own sounds. A really brilliant artist might be able to weave it all pleasingly. Or maybe not _ we tend to be more abrasive and raucous than even those annoying big black birds.

Saturday

Transforming experience to art is odd. Movies require narrative, drawings composition, paintings color, photographs unique immediacy, writing translating existence into meaningful words. But how to use sitting on a hill or walking through the woods or gasping against the wind to compose a song?
First and greatest question is why bother. The world provides it all, what exactly does an artist have to contribute? Capture the moment, perhaps, as much as any aspect of it can be. Recall memories. Distill some common feeling. All of those are difficult in any medium, but to try to capture, recall, or distill while limited to musical notes is almost inconceivable.
Oh, I can imagine a shepherd playing a flute easily enough, or even a folk singer strumming on a guitar, creating something that might catch the public fancy. But I cannot, for the life of me, put Chopin on a park lawn to come up with a Coindre Hall Autumn Sonata that would ever have more evocation of a particular place than its title. Is that my own musical incapacity?
Yet, second question is why can I imagine that sonata, rising from the waving of bare branches, harmonizing with blended browns of the rushes around the stilled pond, counterpointed by occasional calls of geese and ducks over the water? If I am centered I can almost hear it in my mind, a song of nature, yet inexpressible in the sense that anyone else would ever understand what I am trying to do. Even the most accomplished evocation, such as “Appalachian Spring” only becomes meaningful when I am aware of its name.
Music, I suspect, is our most abstract gift to the universe, and a gift to which only other humans or our gods themselves can ever respond completely. But it is also one of our must perfect expressions of pure love of being, whatever the occasion of its origin.

Sunday

Open harbor should provide silent refuge, but unless wind blows strongly any given car or motorcycle is apt to be bellowing a Christmas tune, any given homeowner may be blasting outside speakers with the same. Holiday music has been increasingly insistent for over three months now. But this week it is ubiquitous _ on radio and TV, in stores, along the street. If newspapers could talk they’d be playing jingle bells. Suddenly at the end of next week it drop by half, a week after that will be banished for another year. The proverbial man from Mars would be quite puzzled, particularly at constant references to “sleighs” which haven’t been used for a century, and never ever used in places like Florida.
Music on my mind because many of these ditties are in the form of “earbugs,” those annoying snatches of song that keep playing through my background thoughts even though I desperately try to send them away. Certainly not sonatas. With crude but effective hooks and structures, they get triggered and reinforced at every snatch of melody, and sometimes by other stimuli as well. My particular seasonal concert.

North Pole

Monday

All place names are collective fictions, even though the modern world likes to believe that naming magically makes real. No bird or fish recognizes “Huntington”. Imaginary lines outline legal jurisdictions, but a guide is needed to locate “downtown.” The North Pole is a dimensionless dot over drifting ice with no boundaries at all.
When I was a kid, the North Pole was both magical and real. Santa worked there. Now, I suppose, children realize he has been displaced by eminent domain and natural disaster, his outmoded factory dismantled, his elfin workforce _ unable to use iphones let alone make them_ laid off. He’s probably lounging on a beach somewhere in Costa Rica, while Mrs. Claus reminisces over old photographs of the polar domain.

Tuesday

People strode their dimpled flat world thoughtlessly,

Then Thales conjured up his sphere

Which Newton with Copernicus cutely placed,

Circling sun, spinning on a handy stick

Jammed through North and South poles.

My childhood knew exactly what was what.

North Pole on top, just like us.

Cold icy remote as hell

Unreachable, forbidden

Finest place for Santa Claus to work.

Now, science claims it isn’t where it was

North switches sometimes south, like magic

Overhead each day fly jets, subs lurk underneath

Someday soon dark prophets scream

The few surviving kids might row right by on rafts

All “truth” is conscious mystery:

No real North Pole exists at all

Never did, just in our minds,

Our many models, maps and maths,

And, on occasion, myths

Wednesday

Various names were applied to this hill by native American tribes, by colonists grazing sheep on the South Down, by wealthy Mr. Brown who never got to use his gold coast estate, and by priests remembering Father Coindre. Nobody pausing here to enjoy the view cares. Come a few hundred years, this may well become Huntington Reef in the Gulf of Connecticut. By then, the North Pole too may be long forgotten.
All is transient and personal. My Huntington, my North Pole, is not yours. Whatever we may share of the conception of each is further restricted to our time and place. This scene changes, its name also changes, and we are brief but important visitors. Yet somehow I also think it natural that Coindre Hall, like the North Pole, like I myself, has always been and always will be as it is this moment.

Thursday

Little wreaths sparkling white lights hang from each street lamp in the middle of the day. By the soldiers and sailors memorial at east end of town I find Ed disconsolate on a bench. “Oh, come on,” I kid him, “get some Christmas spirit.”

“Sure ain’t what it used to be,” he complains.

“Nothing is,” I smile. “Weather’s good.”

He ignores me, “Back when, we didn’t get any toys from at least June on, ‘Wait for Christmas.’ That was a big thing. We all believed in the season.”

“It’s festive now,” I argue. “People believe in the season, if nothing else.”

“Well, when I grew up kids at least bought into the whole thing, Santa, toys, life always working out for the best.”

So that’s what’s got into him. “We had our share of cultural chauvinism. All kids do. We thought what was around us was around everybody, obviously all the same.”

“Oh, you’re right about that,” he says. “Santa was a visible manifestation of God _ omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and good.”

“He’s still pretty omnipresent, at least ….” I could see five pictures of him from where I stood.

“I liked the innocence of the old days,” he almost whines. “Now everything is relative this and r
elative that and nothing is simple any more. I want simple again.”

“I think it was just as complicated back then,” I tell him. “Everybody didn’t get presents, lots of people didn’t celebrate Christmas at all. We just ignored them.”

“So what. I liked it better. It was more fun for the kids.”

“Grump, grump, grump,” I tease. “Merry Christmas anyway.”

“Happy whatever to you, too,” he growls.

“Bah, Humbug!” I move on towards the dimly sounding traditional songs echoing tinnily from speakers, ignored by everyone.

Friday

No touch of North Pole around here. It might as well be May, roses still blooming, the migratory ducks somewhat confused by the unnatural heat. Most seniors quite happy for the delay of snow and ice _ all the romance went out of white Christmas with the blizzards of last year. Some no doubt regret putting their boats away, but the buoys are safely stored as always. Hard to tell if it is climate change or just a nice unusual December.
I’d lay bets on climate change. I appreciate the warmth and the chance to stroll in light jacket without heavy hat and gloves, but I keep looking behind my back. I feel like one of those naïve folks rushing out onto the newly-exposed glistening sea bottom to gather treasures, ignoring the ominous murmur of the distant but onrushing tidal wave.

Saturday

Our world expands as we grow, sometimes too much. The certainty of the North Pole and all it implies, complete with Santa Claus, gives way to provable knowledge or a willingness to accept lack of knowledge. We find, along with that, that others do not share our legends, backgrounds, hopes, and goals.
Nostalgia is in some ways a desire to become once again as certain in knowledge and belief as a child. Everything was much easier when things were clear. We may not recognize that the changes are in us, in how we perceive. I wonder why everybody cannot be just like me.
Some claim we have, as a culture, become too sensitive, too aware, too relative for our own good. That is certainly the fundamentalist creed in any religion or politics. Traditionalists shout that hanging on to the myth of the North Pole, objectively true or not, has social value. Such myths help bind tribes together, and make us civilized, at least within our tribe itself.
Unfortunately, leaving childhood is exactly like leaving Eden. Colorations and differences in the world and its peoples are real, whether we choose to be aware of them or not. Ignoring our differences is not useful to survival, but trying to understand and accept everything and everyone is equally destructive.
Once upon a time I knew, as surely as I visualized Santa’s workshop at the North Pole, what was the right way to live and how to be. Now, I am less certain, and even less sure I will ever find any certainty at all.

Sunday

This sleigh at the Halesite fire department looks like it may have trouble getting out of the rapidly growing grass. The real one up at the North Pole is probably facing slush, pothole puddles, and crevasses into the arctic sea. If any of them do get airborne, they will surely be stuck the first place they land, dry roof or muddy field. Unless of course _ always possible _ a polar express wind whips in by month end.
I’ve had a lot of fun with the North Pole this week, probably because it and Santa Claus are some of the least controversial of subjects. For or against, few seem to believe anything striking at the core of their being and beliefs. It’s too bad we do not have more neutral topics like that _ sometimes every conversation seems a potential minefield. I guess irritation just goes along with being fat and happy.

Distant Turmoils

Monday

A brief survey of the news this morning will surely show there are many horrors happening to many people everywhere. Whether there were ever less is impossible to know, but awareness is probably greater. Trying to pay attention, or to begin to care, about everything can be irritatingly painful. Ignoring everything and crawling like Candide back into the garden also seems wrong.
We live in a cultural mythology that claims we can “do anything,” leaving us guilty if we are doing less than we think we should. But this is dangerous too, for it is easy to become overextended and empty. We have no better answers to life’s philosophical questions than any of the ancients. Yet hubris is not only rampant in our engineering, but also in our everyday thinking. Too much attention to the news, too much worry about how we should affect it, is also dangerous to our health.

Tuesday

Children starving, folks in pain

World is warming, acid rain

Open any page or screen

Then try to hide from what you’ve seen

Why should I care, what ought I know

Of Paris, Peking, Chicago?

Olden times had plague and war

Vikings, Mongols, Huns and more

Frequent famines, bitter freeze

Hungry wolves, uncured disease

Somehow humans stayed alive

At least enough to fill their tribe

Just down my street, I’ve read of crimes

At the market, hunger lines

I’m built of several trillion cells,

A few, I know, are shot to hell

And even if it all goes fine

Age claims I’m running out of time.

I’ve always managed, found a way

To reach tomorrow through today

I may not fix those distant ills

I may not guess what future wills

I can make dinner, loan a smile

And hang on happy for a while.

Wednesday

Hardly expected to find a squid washed up on Gold Star beach. Well, surely not washed up, more discarded from some disappointed dreams of a late-season fisher. Its origins were definitely not in the harbor proper _ seems even the seagulls have not recognized it yet.
This fits well with the weekly topic _ here was a (presumably) happy little sea creature, blithely squirting along, suddenly scooped up into events beyond its control. Some old religions told of gods netting people as if they were fish, for their own hidden purposes. Regardless of the scientific validity of such gods, the metaphor is spot on. And I wonder if this squid _ had it been aware of and worrying about human nets _ could have lived any better or longer a life.

Thursday

Mark was looking sullen when I stopped him by the Dairy Barn. “What’s got you so upset?”

“Oh, Ephron yelling at everyone over there,” he gestured down Gerard Street. Ephron is our local prophet of doom, always seeking ears and shoulders and wallets to carry forth his struggles against evil in the world, as he sees it, anyway.

“Free country, Mark. What’s he spouting today?”

“Oh, he’s got them all mixed, now. Global warming, of course, aggravated by the police state, wealth inequality, genetic modification, political corruption, all orchestrated by the CIA.”

“Interesting brew. But I’m sure he has proof, he always does,” I noted sarcastically.

“Sure, pamphlets, a few wet-around-the-ears junior high kids. You can disappear into any belief you dream up these days. Always find as much support as you want anywhere on the internet.”

“Harmless,” I ventured.

“Nah, I think it destroy
s civility and common sense. I’d like to sue him for child abuse and being a public nuisance.”

“He’s got friends. Even a one-trick pony has a right to be heard. He doesn’t really bother me as much as those people with weird fixes.”

“Like?” asked Mark.

“Oh you know, religions or new age junk, or silver bullets, or wishing to make it so, all the way up to killing off those who you want to blame.”

“The only thing that works, for most of us, is small local actions. Driven, I am afraid, by money rather than idealism.”

“I don’t understand.” After all, I did think a lot of the problems were important and should be addressed.

“Pittsburgh and LA only cleaned up pollution when it was destroying the economic viability _ Beijing will no doubt do the same. Here we didn’t get most of the trash off the streets until our municipality could get money for recycling and there was a return bottle deposit. And individuals like us only cooperate when we can save costs with lower electricity use or insulation, or improving our life by not wasting so many precious hours in cars.” He paused for breath.

“But” I began to protest. Too late.

“Just entertainment anyway, all this stuff, a new opiate for the masses while those in power play their little games,” he huffed in disgust.

“Oh, not that,” I finally decided to play along. “More astrology. Everyone now thinks science can be used to predict and control all futures. Like the Babylonians staring at the heavens. And you can always find an astrologer or scientist who wants to make a buck. At least if they can keep their options opaque and open enough. You know, ‘If you do this or don’t do that a mighty empire will fall.’”

“But not how, or when, or which empire,” he laughs.

“Yep!” And we, like the world, continue on our daily ways.

Friday

Following another distant workplace mass murder, Huntington’s little world is calm and quiet, seemingly unaffected by events elsewhere. Like an idyllic Pacific atoll where inhabitants remain unaware that the Japanese and American navies are steaming toward it. Perhaps the island will escape future problems, but that seems less likely by the day. Yet the natives still must fish, still must eat meals, and might as well celebrate luxurious beauty while they can.
Before routine security scanning, I once toiled alongside the cubicle of a fellow programmer _ a normal enough fellow who liked to brag about his various collections, including quasi-legal automatic weapons. Harmless enough, until I overheard him muttering to himself about “they can’t make me do that,” “I can’t stand this,” “I’ll show them.” With some trepidation, I contacted management. He was fine once HR stepped in to put him back on previously unsuspected medications. My middle-aged colleagues and I might have survived an attack from his Samurai swords (another collection) but would have done less well facing an M16 or AK47. Today I consider weaponry control similar to other collective legal responsibility, such as driving safe cars or not dumping poison into lakes.

Saturday

How to deal with large problems, especially those outside your age bracket or field of competence and influence, has been a problem since tribes became large enough for humans to specialize. Some issues have always been so overwhelming that there is little anyone can do but hunker down and hope. Today we believe we are masters of the universe, which may be more true than it ever was, but does not quite extend to really huge difficulties, nor down to individual catastrophes. Nor does it help us resolve contradictions when individuals are hurt for the presumed greater good.
Mark Twain, for example (I know, I know, just a pen name, but who cares) never fought in the Civil War, during which he was prime army material, even though he was against slavery. Would the world be better off if he had been killed at Antietam? What good would have been served by Picasso scrabbling around in the resistance, rather than painting serenely in the south of France. And those were people of influence, unlike most affected.
We like to think we can control wars and violence, but in spite of the chants of democracy, choices of leaders are limited and nobody can predict the tensions they will be under when they face hard choices. We like to think we can overcome plagues and disease, but often resources are redirected too late, and sometimes only crude blind luck saves whole populations. We dismiss hunger and famine as things of the past, but a simple breakdown in our grids and networks _ caused, perhaps, by a massive solar flare _would have civilization starving within a matter of days.
I am much better off than those who lived centuries ago. The modern industrialized world for many of us is a far more controllable and sane place than anywhere used to be, even for those in power. Random accidents still occur, of course, and the threat of disaster will be with any species until the final days when the sun dies. But day to day, mostly, is more than adequate.
We probably should worry. It’s good for the culture. All of us aware of global warming will lead to actions that may help, just as enough people getting sick of massive pollution eventually led to cleaner local water and air. But reading, knowing, talking _ well those aren’t direct and don’t feel real.
My guess is that our worries about future horrors _ whether climate or otherwise _ will be dealt with or resolved in ways we have no way of anticipating. I’m glad we are concerned _ we should always remain concerned and willing to do something together. But when we focus on one problem we lose sight of the correlations _ what happens to coal miners, or industrial production, or food supply.
I would like to believe we and our leaders are honestly trying, but I don’t think we have all the knowledge and control that we imagine.

Sunday

Tides have flowed ceaselessly for eons, but not precisely here. Huntington harbor was formed by melting glaciers _ an instant ago geologically, soon followed by people, much later by swans, and finally these houses. If high tide damages a home along the shoreline, or high wind damages one atop a hill, what responsibility do the inhabitants of each have for the other?
My consciousness is a brew of complicated urges and tensions, finely tuned by billions of years. A person with no empathy sees everything as entertainment, and becomes a psychopathic monster. One with too much feels the pain of all and falls into fatal melancholia or unsupportable innocence. We are immense, fluid, mysterious, and impermanent. Our societies must be mirrors of that complexity.

Well, Thanks

Monday

One would expect that thanks to God and the Universe would arise in fat times, when everyone is overwhelmed with the bounty of happy being, as exemplified by this marina. That would misread the perversity of the human spirit. People usually take bounty for granted, and end up complaining about the quality of their silverware, the poor habits of their servants, the evil thoughts of their neighbors, or their own victimization compared to just about everybody else.
Days of common thanksgiving, illogically, are usually declared in times of disaster. The typical exhortation no matter how bad the crisis is “think how much worse it could be!” My task has always been to reverse that scenario. I don’t mind complaining bitterly when life is awful, although I hardly ever find it so. I think it a duty to be thankful every day for everything, and I am constantly reminding myself how much worse my life and my world could have been.

Tuesday

Thanksgiving Limerick

Earthquake, drought followed by flood

Locusts, fire, war, lost our food

Diseases were gotten

Our cheeses went rotten

At least we ain’t dead yet, thank God

Wednesday

Birds should be grateful _ lots of berries and fruits still hanging on the tree, as yet undamaged by frost. The rest of nature is asleep or storing things like nuts where they can be easily found later. With all that is around, one would suspect there is easily enough for all, that provisions have been made for every tiny being on the planet. Malthus and Darwin and the rest have proved that idea to be cruelly wrong, a fact which we easily verify for ourselves.
People are different. For the first time, we have real opportunity to limit our populations, and guarantee at least food and personal security to just about every human born. That we do not _ from violence or greed or maladjustment _ is hopefully changing. Paradigm shifts occur almost by themselves, like US pop culture becoming worldwide, and perhaps the next big one will be finally that all folks on the planet are in this together and will thankfully share the overwhelming bounty being created.

Thursday

Curt was, as usual, complaining as we waited in line at the supermarket.

“So you didn’t have such a nice thanksgiving, even with all the family over?”

“Oh, it was nice enough, especially in principle _ we know we should get together once in a while. But geez, what a bunch of complainers. The adults were whining ignorant envious wimps. Their kids were worse _ vicious unappreciative grasping monsters.”

“Ah, c’mon,” I try to cheer him up. “People are always like that, always were like that, when they get together with people they trust.”

“I don’t think so. Well, maybe. I did get sick of being told how easy my life had been, the fifties were a utopian lark, the sixties were our indulgent fools’ paradise, and you know they truly believe we never had to worry about anything. But, oh them! Woe, impossible to find decent jobs, insecure about everything. Their house is huge, but someone else’s is huger, their car is nice but they want something nicer, the kitchen was done over, but it’s already starting to show its age. And horrors, Adam is not as brilliant and focused as Jennie, Heather loafed the summer and missed out on soccer camp. What garbage. They have no idea what they have.”

“Surely, we have been the same.”

“Nah,” he grumped, “Nah. I’ve always been happy and properly grateful for a wonderful life, even during harder times. Them, no matter what, they think their world is going to hell and pretty hellish to be in right now and they can’t understand what they are supposed to be so thankful about. Stupid little twits all of them.”

“So it actually was horrible time,” I finally agreed.

“No, of course it was great. We love our family. Whatever gave you that impression?”

Friday

Amazingly warm weather continues. Nice for anyone taking advantage of it outside. No doubt bad for the planet. But that is true of many things, and there is always a question how much we enjoy the moment at the expense of losing the future. We need to be thankful for each day, each minute of grace. And yet we should also be grateful that there have been pasts which we can remember, and there will presumably be futures that we can imagine.
I realize that personally there is little I can do to stop planetary warming on my own. There are en
ough shrill voices. My own contribution to climate change is miniscule _ I hardly drive, take maybe one plane trip a year, and try to be conscious of reusing materials. But that makes no difference. So I enjoy the lovely temperature, putter around my yard, and without too much guilt leave worries of the future to the future. I guess I should also be grateful I can do that.

Saturday

By any measure I have been among the most fortunate of people. I never deserved to be born, and I surely never deserved my good fortunes. I was willing to do what was necessary: to love, to work, to appreciate, to hope. Rewards tumbled all about, and all I needed to do was be willing to recognize them.

There are many unhappy people, or at least I so gather _ most of those I actually know seem content enough. For much of the world this has been a measurably better time than most of the past, and it is a well-known historic fact that after such improvements is when revolutions usually occur. Perhaps there is about to be a revolution. Maybe it will even be a good one, for a change.

Some worry about social trends, some about climate change, some about falling populations, some about overcrowding, some about things I know nothing of. The best of times, they cry, the worst of times. Don’t I realize that …. Whatever. Wake up do something.

What I do beyond the boundaries of my yard has little impact. What is one drop among seven billion identical to me? Life has always been out of control, the future has always been unknowable, and yet somehow we arrived here in these interesting times.

So I wake up and give thanks. I walk and give thanks. I fill myself with food and give thanks. I am grateful I can think, and sleep, and still do many things. The only proper reaction to being alive and conscious is to be awed. Those who give those miracles up to preach despair are, I firmly believe, simply fools.

Sunday

Sometimes, naturally, being Pollyanna all the time becomes wearing. It is a rare person indeed who never has negative feelings about their place in the world. That is especially true after trying so hard to look at the bright side of things for a week.
I suppose I have ups and downs like anyone. What have I done, where am I going, what’s the use of it all. Silly, but there it is, just as real as being happy for all I have. As day breaks, I know my task is to once more try harder to celebrate all that is. A somber close to a wonderfull week.

Shrinkage

Monday

With more indoor time enforced, with greater preparations required for wandering in the open, with occasional thoughts of ice and snow, with shorter days and longer shadows and less powerful sun _ autumn is traditionally a period of shrinking inwards. Of course there are busy tasks to prepare for harsh winter, but everything tends to contract towards home and hearth. The natural world seems much less jubilant and sensual, an evil shadow of what it once had been a month or so ago.
Technology has changed most of that. Work and home continue as always, hours and tasks unaffected now that there is electricity, commerce, and interchange. Saturnalian end-of-year festivals engage all our free time, weather is irrelevant _ even huge blizzards mostly an inconvenience if they bother to show up at all. I’d be a fool to lament this easier and happier existence. I’m willing to keep my toes in nature, try to stay in tune with the slowed rhythms, but I never lament being warm, well fed, and active.

Tuesday

Hibernation. An idea

Whose time has come again.

Wait out the cold, the freeze, the wind

Dream beyond the pain.

Safe underground, safe in our beds,

Safe behind our walls

Safely retreated from the world

Safe stuffed deep in our halls.

We all know illusion’s charm

And though that may sound sweet

Monsters lurk, if not destroyed,

Will kill us as we sleep.

Wednesday

These ruins of a pump house at Coindre Hall seem appropriate as the temperature drops. Destruction, decay, and forgetfulness play an underlying theme in late November. Winter may be the hopeless season when all seems lifeless and going outdoors is an act of defiant desperation, but autumn resembles a warning. That is seized upon by philosophers and theologians to remind people how insignificant each one is in the vast universe.
I have no idea where I fit into “the” universe, but in my universe I am the main event. Today is magnificent, life is wonderful, and I look forward to tomorrow. What I do is consequential to what will happen in my environment. Deeper thoughts of cold logical philosophy and nagging intuitive religion rarely color my underlying consciousness moment by moment. Even in autumn. Perhaps that is a fool’s happiness, but such joy is real for me.

Thursday

“Hi, Jim, finally need the gloves, eh?”

“Yeah, summer’s fled, I guess.”

“Any big plans for the holidays or afterward.”

“Oh, the usual. Family over for Christmas, of course. Then we’re off to Florida for a few weeks beginning of February. Not looking forward to it, to tell you the truth.”

“Sounds nice to me.”

“Ah, but I have everything I want at home. Books, TV, food, routines, comforts. I admit I don’t get out much, and certainly not far away, but I don’t miss it.”

“I share that. Guess we’re both getting old. When I was younger nothing seemed too big an adventure. Now it sometimes seems an effort to even go grocery shopping on Saturday.”

“Some people age with lots of energy and are always doing stuff.”

“True. Not me. I like to take my time now. Frankly, I don’t envy them. I always think they’re missing what I found.”

“Well, soon enough we’ll have spring and summer again, and more than we can handle around here.”

“Speak for yourself,” I laugh, “I’ve still got lots of leaves and other cleanup to keep me busy for weeks. Not to mention cleaning _ like you _ for holiday visitors.”

Friday

Last lingering reminders are still all around, like these roses blooming into the teeth of an approaching storm. Some days are still warm. Fine outdoor sights and weather can be appreciated more now that they are endangered. Someone who has just escaped catastrophe, or knows vacation is about to end, can easily discover fresh joy from previously mundane surroundings.
I am the luckiest of creatures, blessed with memory and means to organize it so the past lies open. That which I have experienced does not easily disappear. Even trapped in freezing snowdrifts, I can remember daffodils and autumn oaks, things I have done, people I have known. My entire lifeline lies open to my consciousness, so that even when I sink seemingly bounded into a comfortable chair, I remain the king of infinite time and space.

Saturday

I remain happiest in climates similar to that in which I grew up in Pennsylvania. Anybody can justify anything, of course, so as I reflect on how fine it is to have seasons, I must also realize that perhaps that is because they attach strongly to my own past. I like to think seasonal patterns teach us all something healthy, a perspective that we lose when we totally control all climate and always follow an identical daily routine.
Predictable seasonal patterns _ wet and dry, or cold and hot, or whatever _ are the most obvious about which to moralize, but in fact all life has cyclical patterns of some type. Even in the unchanging desert or ever-soaked rain forest there are differences between night and day. But I think where no part of a cycle lingers with some potency, there is a tendency to believe things are eternal and unchanging. Those of us enjoying _ or afflicted by _ strong contrasts as the year turns are more likely to believe ongoing gain and loss is inevitable.
We anthropomorphize even wind and rain, even length of daily sunlight. Suddenly I may believe my life has entered its autumn, as frailty strikes not only me, but all those my age that I know. This melancholy may extend to worrying about a final winter I may not survive. What is the correct reaction?
Clutch closely that all that is around me? That hardly works, like hiding under a tree in the rain, I will eventually get wet. Clutching does little more than make my worries impossible. Let go of everything and live for the moment? Unfortunately, the possibilities of my moments are somewhat curtailed compared to when I was young and strong, and in spite of my “accepting my age” most of the time there will be unwelcome consequences for paying no attention to tomorrow.
My solution is to project my inward thoughts out to the seasonal attributes. Watching trees and birds and rain and long evenings is an enjoyment always available. Understanding or fantasizing is a pleasure never fading. My physical possibilities, in this season and at this age, may indeed be shrinking, but that need not affect my mind and soul.

Sunday

An almost mad dash to the south for sunset each evening. People exclaim they can’t believe it is getting dark already. Trees have assumed their interlacing skeletal frames for the coming snows. No wonder that ancient peoples made a ritual of end of year worries that the night might become eternal. No wonder that we do the same.
A month from now the sun’s race southward slows, stops, and begins a slow return after winter solstice. Even though the heart of winter remains, that is a time of beginning hope. But these final weeks until that rebirth are psychologically difficult. The contracting constriction of everything natural strikes deep into our soul, a longer chord similar to circadian rhythm that we may ignore, but experience unconsciously nevertheless.

True Fall

Monday

Foliage dimming brown, bare branches evident, this is the week when the bulk of the drying leaves come down. Each gust of wind brings another shower of gently floating detritus. Each morning, no matter how spotless the evening before, ground is covered as if with dust or brown frost. Sometimes capricious winds will sweep one area bare, pile another corner high.
I have always considered fall named for this unavoidable shower of vegetation. Now I refuse to look up the true etymology_ sometimes it is nice to hold on to personal myths if they bother nobody else. I think, at least around here, I remain one of the few people who think a few leaves on a lawn enhances it and makes it real _ spotless is for sterile indoor malls or obsessively clean rugs, not nature. However tame we try to make it.

Tuesday

Frost rain wind cold sun, morning surprise

Annoying random waves and piles, thick or thin

Soggy leaves, or crisp.

Dappled lawn affront to neighbor’s eyes

Leather gloves, pull rake and plastic bags from bin

Hours building drifts

All undone by nightfall, next sunrise,

Many more fall down, blown to our yard by winds

“Again,” wife insists.

Wednesday

Classical European landscape artists rarely depict autumn. In backgrounds of Italian Renaissance painters, it’s always summer. The Dutch and French occasionally portray winter, but even there the greatest _ Ruisdael, Hobbema _ stick mostly to the times when green fills their worlds. On the other hand, almost the first American landscapes are of color-draped Catskills or Long Island farms after harvest.
Europe has colorful trees _ my wife and I have seen them in Paris in October, walking through Pere Lachaise. Rather the explanation is convention and opportunity. Until the 1800;s, painting had to be done in studios where paints could be prepared and mixed. Summer was for sketching outside, then the real paintings were done over the winter based on the drawings. Only with the advent of factory colors did artists venture outside, and even then most of the impressionists found working in autumn wind and rain a bit too challenging. Anyway, I enjoyed remembering all this as I strolled through the Metropolitan museum yesterday, while heavy drizzle brought down the leaves outside in Central Park.

Thursday

I’d just gotten a large stack together at the end of the driveway _ about halfway through my leaf-raking journey around the house. Jay came walking by, on his daily perambulation of the neighborhood, and waved a cheerful greeting. “Ready to burn them now?” he laughed.

“What, and have someone call the fire department?” I replied.

“Or worse, the police. I’m sure it’s illegal somehow.”

“Yeah, sure has changed,” I noted. “My dad and I always just put them in a big pile out in the back yard and had a bonfire. I mean a big pile, not like this little thing. Lots of fire, smoke, but everyone was doing it. You could smell it for weeks around our place.”

“Ah, the joys of environmental awareness,” he commented.

“I just can’t see how _ for example _ everyone in these suburbs burning a few leaves once a year comes anywhere close to the oxidation from all those forest fires out west, or in Australia, Europe, and Malaysia over the summer. Seems kind of silly.”

“Yeah, I agree,” he said. “Besides, there’s a lot more pollution of all kinds from blowers and using plastic bags and having big trucks take them to the dump. I doubt anyone has ever done a scientific study. Just one of those things that crept up on us.”

“Damn crazy regulated world.”

“Maybe. But you and certainly your wife would no doubt complain if everyone else were smoking up the place, and blackening the walls, getting soot in the house. Some smoke like poison ivy is even dangerous.”

“Didn’t bother us way back when,” I protest. “And Alders down the street always has a fireplace going smoking up everything anyway.”

“So run for town council,” he smiled. “Anyway, the exercise is good for you.”

“You sound too much like my wife,” I grumped. More leaves swirled down on a stronger gust of wind.

Friday

A few days of rain, a few nights of cold, a few more days of wind and the landscape is new. Ground spaces previously cleared are filled once more. Trees have lost at least half their canopy, some branches stripped bare. While the leaves remain wet, it’s a waiting game because dry stuff is a lot easier to clean up, blow, bag, and carry.
For me, this is the heart of autumn, past the fairy tale colors and suspicious warmth. A season has arrived for real, and there will be cold and there will be precipitation and there certainly will be increasing darkness. Our sun sets at four thirty, and even the mornings are grey and mournful. In a few weeks, all the foliage will be cleaned up, all the winter clothes on display, and soon yard lights will futilely try to add cheer to arriving solstice.

Saturday

Raking leaves, one thinks of the carbon cycle we all learned in elementary school: animals eating, breathing oxygen and churning out carbon dioxide while plants turn CO2 into food and oxygen. Visible sequestration of carbon seems to swirl all around us at this time of year, the end result of the mighty lungs of the huge forests of Eastern North America.
If we worry about climate, it tends to center on carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere in prodigious quantities by industry, or perhaps by the destruction of lung forests such as those of New York or the Amazon. What will happen as our air goes increasingly out of balance?
But, like many things, these ideas are far too simplified. The leaves sequester carbon for a while, of course, but rapidly decay on forest floors, often consumed by microorganisms that release carbon dioxide more efficiently than the larger mammals. Volcanoes and forest fires can release amounts of CO2 that dwarf anything produced by human activities, at least for a while. And much of the carbon cycle is actually accomplished by things much less obvious than broadleaf deciduous trees.
We easily realize that grasses and shrubs do their part, and with a little effort will admit that algae and seaweed do the same. Perhaps we do not quite understand how much of the balance is done by those less obvious plants, but at least we respect their efforts. Even there, we may not realize how much of a part in the cycle oceans and their inhabitants play, making most of the land efforts puny by comparison.
But the truly astonishing thing is that much of the oxygen in the atmosphere is accomplished by oceanic viruses. Science still struggles to understand it all. Surely that matters a great deal to the health of the planet, but who wants to see viruses as necessary and good (especially since we cannot see them at all)?
Leaves are useful obvious metaphors for the interconnection of life on earth. Like so many of the metaphors we love they are incomplete and almost, but not quite, so misleading as to be wrong. Consider that the next time you brush one off your shoulder in November gusts.

Sunday

In less than five days this year just about everything is on the ground. Oh, the more stubborn leaves will hang on for a few months, trickling down to annoy those who prefer spotless. Only the hard freeze has held off, so there are still ragged spots of brilliant color in some gardens. Anyone outside today knows this is the end of the year.
I’ve seen roses right up until Christmas, in sheltered locations. A few trees remain green turning yellow, as if they are the last poor victims in a plague ward. But there is no doubt that this was a good week to dub the heart of fall.