Thursday, November 17, 2005

Melancholy, in Brown and Grey

Update:

To those of you who want me to write more than once a month, I have to tell you that I want to, also. Right now I am behind on several email and letter-writing tasks, which really must come first. Also, we're tearing out carpet in our dining/living room, flooring the former with something more proper to a dining area where four children eat meals, and painting all the walls before the carpet installers come.


Melancholy:

Fall has ended abruptly with six inches of snow. It is wonderful and I love snow. But I wasn't ready for it this year. The week or two after all the loud and glorious colored leaves have fallen and muted is, for me, a cherished time of rest. The breath-stopping world of many colors becomes reduced to a few quiet shades. Trees stand naked and grey and the ground along the sides of the road and on the forest floor is deep brown. The few leaves remaining on the trees and the ones which blow across my yard are chestnut- not orange, but hinting at what orange must be.

When I look out the picture window in my dining room, past my red barn and the woodshed and the sagging chicken coop, I see far into the wood, where there was only leafy closeness before. The hardwood trees are tall, twisted or leaning from years of untiring pursuit after a fleeing sun. These grey phantoms hover over the brown earth, playing endlessly with light and shadow. There's a finality, and a melancholy. But it suits me.

My world is so much bigger for this week or two- until the first snow, and then things close in again. But it is a cheery closeness; clean and bright and undeniably beautiful.

1 comment:

Rachael King said...

Well with 50 degree weather today, it looks like I may get a few more weeks of russet ground and bare trees. Wherever grass shows through the leaf-cover, melting snow has left it emerald green.

Michael: I'm sure the weather is lovely, but I don't know that I could live without four distinct seasons. They give rhythm and meaning to the seasons of my soul.

Laura: Does our phone conversation count? You made me laugh, today, and I needed that. Thanks.