I’m sitting here on our front porch, writing and watching. It’s an amazing 20 degrees Celsius (68 Farhenheit) here and the earth feels, for some and other reasons, sterling.
The light on the freshly mowed lawns look silver in the deep shadowed air. The horizon, from what little I can see of it, holds off far into the distance, a gray streak rising above the crowded trees out West. If I squint my eyes, I can almost see the sun, which is shining against the windows bright white with halos of summer gold. The breeze is barely perceptable, colored by the light of day. I love this feeling. The air uncirculating yet it’s unstifling and the stillness of the day is only cut by the traffic running on the busy street only doors down. On the tops of the cars there is a glint, a cover of brightness that stings the eyes for a moment and then falls away. This glint and glinting, it’s what dreams are made of.
The trees have lost their leaves so there’s no faking it now; this is not summer. It is Fall.
But it’s a Fall day that reminds of me of childhood days back East, or at least, college days in New England. There, the leaves would fall more slowly but, with a light jacket and a good book, the entire afternoon would feel this way. Calm with cars. Light given off grass. Certainty surrounding uncertainty and the aquisition of tainted knowledge.
And I realize now another reason why I’m relishing this moment and writing about this moment. It’s this: there is no moralizing, no mechanism or politics around the description of nature. It is and it will always will be. And it’s true.