like an ocean, mysterious and dark

the living room air gypsy gave out on us. just when the heat was rising yet again. but it rained again last night and aside from giving the ferns new spindly fronds it delivered us from perspiration and sent a cool breeze winging her way through the house.

the neighbor's back tree, tall and glorious has begun to release leaves across their backyard, golden and crunchy. we've trees everywhere. we need to buy a blower. a cordless one. raking is for people who live in new subdivisions with miniature trees bearing two hundred and eight leaves a piece.

little brother played a gig in elmwood last weekend.



i forgot to take pictures of him (?) but did manage to guffaw and take a few pictures of enthusiastic cloggers.



it was hot and the audience was lame but they smiled and whooped just the same. (note: little brother and friend setting up the stage behind the smiling, "northern-ankled" dancers.)



even though it means that winter and the cold slushiness that comes with it is coming all too soon, the changing of colors and breezes and temperature making up that which is autumn is, quite possibly, my favorite time of year. when i was a young and silly college girl i couldn't concentrate for the weather and color. we were girls escaping in cars with windows rolled down and jackets pulled tight, we'd drive away in silence, feeling fragile and yet so alive. we knew something mortal about the lonely trees, the blueness of sky pole-vaulting above us, and it made us live a little bigger, a little more haphazard, than perhaps we should have.

today's twenty things i love about autumn:

1. the cessation of involuntary sweating.
2. the purchase and wearing of sweaters and corderoy.
3. crunching over crispy leaves and brittle sticks.
4. cold wooden floors under first-thing-in-the-morning feet.
   
5. hot coffee mugs in cold hands.
6. early darkness.
7. boys with rosy cheeks.
8. piles and piles of gold, worth nothing but good jumping, scattering, hurled high, wide.
   
9. halloween and everything creepy about it.
10. fall festivals, mostly the food, fried and frittered and caramel dipped to perfection.
11. long scarves wound around necks!
12. the library.
    
13. the sky through leafless trees.
14. pumpkins and squash, gourd and berry.
15. cold sand at the playground.
16. cuddling up a little closer.
17. new books.
18. kneesocks.
19. ant hibernation.
20. long drives through the country.