Monday, October 26, 2009

That Autumn Feeling




"Trees eat themselves" - Timonthy Cavendish, Cloud Atlas.

My brother, sister-in-law, and I recently went exploring country east of Ottawa. It was a dewy Autumn day. Foliage confetti, fallen branches and barren trees striped of their pride and joy. Looked a bit like an abandoned war zone.

Whenever it comes around, I always proclaim Autumn to be my favorite season - but I do the same for Spring and the first snowfall as well. Autumn is usually too transient for you to ever really feel like you are in the season. But, this Autumn, to Summer and most people's chagrin, started early. I don't recall enjoying so many days kicking leaves.

Another quote from Cloud Atlas on the end of Autumn, this one from Robert Frobisher:

"Air in the chateau clammy like laundry that won't dry. Door-banging drafts down the passageways. Autumn is leaving its mellowness behind for its spiky, rotted stage. Don't remember summer even saying good-bye."

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Sunday's before dusk

There's a pregnancy in the air on Sundays afternoons, brimful of anticipation of the week ahead and stuffed full of unfettered relishing of the weekend's final moments.

Children play games in the street, ignoring their parent's beckoning calls, smells of laundry billow out of apartment vents cleansing the neighborhood air, little girls set aside their school outfits and pack their knapsacks with their perfect show-and-tell items, 'one-day-we'll-make-it' bands savor the final set of their weekly jamming session and matrons add the last pinch of paprika to their autumn pumpkin stew.

Preparation for the week ahead and a final reverence for week past. Beginnings and closures in the same space.

The air is pregnant on Sunday afternoons.