Fall into Winter

Perhaps that title should be Autumn into Winter, just to avoid the pun potential but I couldn’t resist. Winter encroached on fall territory today, with the first foray of the Christmas holidays falling on November 30. As of today, it’s officially only four Sundays until Christmas, and so I lit a candle even though the leftover turkey isn’t entirely gone yet. Of course, when it’s cold, gray and dark by 4, it doesn’t really matter if it’s officially fall or winter. It’s just nice to be inside, with homemade cookies, a warm blanket and the cats curled up on their favorite chair. The candle just adds an extra little glow of warmth to November’s last Sunday. Besides, my Christmas wreath hasn’t arrived yet, so it can’t be December yet.

Is there a point to this? No, I’m just stretching my writing muscles, remembering how this works. And I thought it appropriate to leave this here, in November, so I can find it again later, when I want to remember fall.

This month brought me an intersection of blogs and life: Because construction blocked my routine commuting path, I walked on the opposite side of the street and got to see my usual route with fresh eyes. The trees in various stages of leaflessness blended their silhouettes together against the low gray of the sky, where the sun was only just making a vague promise of appearance against the curtains of mist. You know, it’s still dark at 7 a.m. in November and your boots crunch through dead leaves and muddy puddles and slate-gray seems to be the underlying color choice even in the autumn foliage. What’s left of it. And then I saw an orange glow from a tree that was a black bony structure curving on someone’s front lawn. No leaves, but something reddish pulsed at me through the morning gloom like little red lanterns hung high in the skeleton of branches. As I stood, transfixed, I suddenly knew – these are persimmons. And I knew this because I read food blogs, where these strange fruits popped up recently. This confluence made me happy. Not only to see the beauty of the persimmons, not just to recognize them, but to do so because of a thing that brings me joy elsewhere (yay, food blog). That morning, past the persimmon tree, my heart glowed warm like the little red lanterns behind me.

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