Fall In All
Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 08:44PM NOTE: The following is a piece I wrote last autumn. I hope you like it.
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Tonight I walked two miles in my quiet neighborhood under the bland stare of the full moon. I could not stop looking up. Charged with silver light, gauzy shreds of clouds drifted over the glowing sightless cyclops that has seen it all ... everything there has been to see, since God put it there.
So many falls! So much is falling. Night is falling faster each day, causing sleepy eyelids to fall. Temperatures are falling; leaves are falling; sleeve lengths are falling.
From the huge oak, the elderly sentinel that stands watch over our house, the acorns are falling so rapidly that I imagine the fat squirrels in the branches are playing a toss game. The acorns hit hard and bounce-roll the length of the roof's pitch, doing a sprightly tap dance in staccato Morse code. Occasionally I can even hear the soft plish as one hits the pool and settles languidly to the bottom, where it will pass the winter in the deep end.
But still, sometimes, tears fall. They fall for bells that cannot be unrung as much as for bells that will never be rung.
November is falling from the calendar and from all time, like the year. The year started and progressed as they all do: with the brittle skittering sunlight piercing the thin air of winter, which softened into the fickle winds and cosseting warmth and gentle color of spring, which deepened into summer's long siege of oven-hotness perfumed with nodding honeysuckle and punctuated with the whirring of ten billion tiny wings.
Now the year is so fragile, so far gone, any moment now and the final snap! of a twig will send it toppling from the world like a plump raindrop sliding off a bird's beak.
As I walked tonight, in the velvety rustle of still-green leaves I imagined I could smell both the loamy deciduous decay of dwindling fall and the cool, delicate verdancy of future springs. Life and death were all around me and I was not afraid of either.
In the near distance I heard a long melancholy bleat torn from the throat of a train, and as I listened to the strident subtext beneath that music, the dakdak-dakdak of iron wheels on iron rails, I imagined that the cars bore the freight of years away into the darkness.
When I hear that sound, if I look closely I can see the sorrows before me as clearly as the sorrows behind me ... so I don't look. But still, sometimes, tears fall. They fall for bells that cannot be unrung as much as for bells that will never be rung. Sorrow squares off against joy in an endless showdown, determination writ large in the tense and eager stance of each.
The moon's indifferent gaze followed me home, its milky light becoming the buttery light pouring from my windows. Grateful for that sight, I closed the door of my happiness against the certainty of fall and all that follows.
Reader Comments (14)
This is good, Jen! You are a great writer! Your thoughts are deep! Even though it made me sad, I liked how you made me aware of why I do not like fall. Then again, maybe it is like seeing your glass as half full or half empty. It is all in how you look at it. I always look at the dark side of things. I am so amazed at how many people LOVE fall! They love the colors. They love the brisk cool air and on and on it goes. Being the melancholy that I am, I really have to look to see anything good about the fall. Hahahaha!
Cheryl, you're so funny. I'm very melancholy as well, but I love the fall of the year. It's winter I don't like! But I totally understand what you mean. I call myself the most optimistic pessimist you'll ever meet, and I have a feeling you are the same. Thanks for your kind words!
Aaah, those seductive moonlit nights! Good one!
I think autumn is a melancholy time of year, with everything falling, dying or dripping. Winter can actually be better with the sparkle of frost ... but then again, we also get the drippy, foggy, bone-chilling days too!
Jay, perfect days for a snuggle by the fire with your doggies!
What a beautiful description of your evening and your feelings. Very nice. I saw your comment on I Do Things that said you were born in Kokomo. I live north of there so I just had to come check out your blog. I love your writing and will be reading all your posts in more depth. I hate to skim such good posts!
Hello Karen, and thank you for stopping by! I'll swing by your blog and say hey. I hope you do come back and read some more!
This is a lovely description and really captures the mood and feel of fall! I love the changing colors, the light breeze and right now, where I am, the warmth of the sun. Oh yes, and the abundance of pomegranates and green apples which translates into many apple pies!
Keli ... thanks, and YUM! I love me some apple pie. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family.
Ooooh, baby, that was good! So well written... made me sigh. I read it on two levels. One the meaning of it, the melancholy bittersweet wonderful horrible sorrowful joy that is LIFE! but I also read it just for the sound of the words and phrases - so hard to get beautiful writing and heartfelt meaning all in one. Like a little gift to my day. Thank you, my dear.
Why Tracie my sweet, you are so welcome. Your praise was a gift to my day!
Ok, now i've read the other comments, and i'm commenting on the comments! We all obviously felt the melancholy in your writing! I love that word, it is so full of meaning, the longing, restless hope we have sometimes that something amazing is right around the bleak corner. Also, my husband was born in Kokomo too. and i love the optimistic pessimist description! I don't know what I am. A serious cheerful person or something. Or as my son so aptly puts it, a walking contradiction in terms!
LOL, I think I might be a walking, living breathing contradiction in terms too. Aren't we all? The longing to be what our ideals show us we can be, is so strong. Your husband was born in KOKOMO? That is an amazing coincidence ... and you know, for a long time when I was a kid, we lived in Florida. This sounds like Kismet to me, girlfriend. We were destined to cross paths in cyberspace.
Oh, most definitely, Jennifer, there are some people you are just meant to be friends with! Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out we'd met as kids? What part of FL did you live in? (I always tease my husband that there's no way he'd of gotten away from me, because being an Air Force kid he lived all over, but it seems I had someone in every spot! He was born in IN and so was I, he lived in Puerto Rico and so did my Aunt, then he lived in Calif. and so did my Dad, plus he lived in VA, where I was almost born and we visited Mom's old friends, then he settled in FL, and his grandparents lived down the street from us!)
@ Tracie ... Oakland Park! Suburb of Fort Lauderdale. But we weren't there for very long ... we weren't anywhere for very long! Sounds like you and your man are pure destiny.