Black and Sun

Weather moved in today, cold front rained down during the night and we woke to the first fall/winter chill in the air. Temperature dropped 30 degrees overnight and then the rain cleared to reveal bright, crystal clear cool ether air.

Feels like Halloween. Pumpkins are out.

When the wind blows the trees make a sound like:

SSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH…

Shh, hush you now down to sleep.

I’m sitting on the front porch with a clove and a glass of red wine. Patty Griffin on the stereo:

Ain’t nothing left at all in the end of being proud
With me riding in this car, and you flying through the clouds

SSSSSHHHSHHHHSSHHHH…

Occurred to me the other day
You’ve been gone now a couple years
well, I guess it takes while
For someone to really disappear

Today my heart is big and sore
it’s tryin’ to push right through my skin
I won’t see you anymore
I guess that’s finally sinkin’ in

And I wonder where you are, and where the pain is when you die

And I wonder if there was

Some better way to say goodbye… 

Tonight my Nana floated up into that bright, clear ether air. My Nana died. 5pm she said goodbye, without a word. My Nana who’s been leaving us for the last couple years - Alzheimers, the long goodbye. This evening her body finally sighed its last sigh, spirit floated away while she slept. 

SSSSSSHHHHHHSHHHHHSSSSHHHHHSHHHHHHH…  

Another pleasant throw-back to my childhood conjured up by Austin Fall: pecans.

In elementary school, during these same months of Fall, we used to spend our recess time stomping on pecans with our penny loafers and eating the delectable nutmeats inside. At least until our teachers scolded us…don’t eat that, that’s dirty! Which we of course promptly ignored once the teachers turned their attention to more important concerns, like the boys clobbering one another at the other end of the playground.

Finding sustenance in the trees and bushes and sidewalks of home or school is perhaps one of a child’s most primal pleasures.  It’s what we’ve been programmed through evolution to seek out, and yet, in our modern world where food is found at grocery stores and restaurants but surely not at the roots of a tree, it’s a surprise and joy to find something on the ground that you can actually put in your mouth.

And walking down the street to our local café, stomping on pecans along the way, I find myself revisiting this childhood pleasure in force.

Do I miss New England Fall this year? Maybe a little. But only a little. Austin Fall suits me just fine.

We turned off the air conditioner last night, and opened the windows. Austin blew in on the wind and the cats went wild. Fall in Austin is a subtle change; shorts and flip-flops haven’t yet disappeared. It’s still hot, but less so. And the air smells different  - dryer, cleaner. When I went swimming this morning, the pool was icy cold; the wind made crumpled ripples on the water and blew my kickboard rambunctiously into the fence.

With the windows open and the Austin Fall blowing in, I become nostalgic. I think of coming home from school and finding the windows thrown open, and my mother’s exuberance at the first non-humid day of the year. I think of making Halloween decorations after school and walking house-to-house selling Ascension Day School Haunted House tickets. I think of myself standing on the back of the couch, looking out the window, whining that I’m bored and asking when kindergarten will start. “In the Fall,” my mom says. “When is it Fall?” I ask. “When the leaves begin to fall from the trees,” says mom. “Oh. Look, the leaves are falling now! Is it time for school to start yet?”