“I worked my way around the edge of the driest bed, choosing sunlight, while other areas sat in thick dew, dripping, arrested still in damp conditions. Time for the old blooms to go, the grasses & clover to be pulled, the branches nipped by deer cut down, and a few hopeful transplants to be relocated. There is a long ways to go yet, for flower gardens, and much yet to be revealed, if one knows how to manage the late season flotsam. Fall color is filled with gratitude, and a harbinger of the cold, not fragile by any means. What bursts forth despite the cooling temperatures, the audaciousness of startling blooms heading into frost, is ours to treasure. As we begin to light our autumn fires, and tuck into safety, the things that are truly gone. I can almost love better, in the fall. The poignancy of celebrants leaving, the hardy, stolid resurgence of what likes cold, stirs something in my soul. I too, am ready for the rituals of loss. It’s more what I know, than not. In my heart of hearts, I am here to uphold the survivors, as they rally to meet adversity, again, and not for the first time. We all have different talents, and predilections. Born in December, just prior to the solstice, I know what it is to be plunged into the inky darkness of lack. To be there at the inception, of when our dreams go under. My shirt is still wet, but I’m not ready to go inside. My dirt-caked gardening clothes fit well, and almost better, as the weather pulls us inside. One geranium on the back porch is peaking as it speaks to the change, its one blossom, cobalt red, is like manna to the influx, of invading forces. I switch to 4WD like a mantra, to grip tighter to the road, that takes me into rough terrain. The kind of land that isn’t so easily traversed on a lark, or a sunny, grandiose day. I’ve been caught by makeshift stoplights, like border guards, all day, it seems. The cracking pavement, nearly falling into river beds, remains under construction, as much as can be remodeled, before the snow. I drive, with an eye to the immensity of gravity, under misted peaks. The reports from authorities advise the water runs, only feral now, filled with pollutants and germs, even in the most remote places. I nod to this, with a skeptics eye. All the cleansing, all the rampant invasives trying to siphon off what is clearly unnatural, as their growth is unnatural, and alarming in its forwardness. I trust more what is happening, unbidden, and far beyond the reaches of human control. There’s a wisdom off our charts, and navigational systems, that is policing, and signaling bad ju-ju back to us, in ugly, beautiful, misunderstood formats. Which tells me time is pausing, time is relegating the deeper knowing, to few and far between. No matter. We regroup, and talk to each other, as much as we are able. We do things like go to breakfast, and sit in the window, at diner tables, and cafe nooks. We gaze at the rain, which is endless, which is both good and not good. We linger on benches, on the sides of general stores, to observe the ordinary, no longer so ordinary. The cell phones buzz and rattle and ping, and we wonder whether or not to answer. We can turn them off, but mostly, we don’t. Not wanting to miss a message, that might kindle a kinder fire. We keep checking, we keep hoping. It’s a natural gesture, to be responsive, to making life. How much we are manipulated by unseen forces, we are nervously unaware of. But nervous, none-the-less. And even while licking ice creams, and admiring kayaks on the pristine ponds before us, we rest uneasy, though fully ready to go forward, into exactly what ... we don’t know.”
