Monday, November 5, 2007

Here Comes the Dark



Light is so precious during the last quarter of the year, especially after Daylight Savings Time ends. The angle of the sun at this time of year is incredible. It makes everything more beautiful at the same time that the suddenly dry air brings every shadow, every detail, into sharp focus. Glorious! The days are shrinking away - no wonder daylight has suddenly become so precious. No wonder fall is the season made for melancholy! No wonder!

I'm very lucky to live a life that requires me to be outdoors so often. In fact, spending time outside is a major component of my Plan to Stay Sane. The natural world reminds me, every day of the year, that there are larger realities than my own personal dramas. Thank God! I can't imagine working in an office all day, emerging at 5:30 or 6:00 to discover that it's already completely dark. Yikes!

Of course there are moments during the hottest afternoons of summer, and the coldest, windiest, rainiest moments of winter, when I curse the wild, extreme and unpredictable nature of weather and seasonal shifts, even though here in Washington DC, those extremes are quite gentle (except in August). Mostly I'm so grateful to partake of the change of seasons. I missed the seasons the entire time I lived in San Francisco. Living in accord with these dramatic changes is well worth the occasional discomfort. It's so orienting.

At the moment, the weather gods are at their best, producing crystal blue skies, brisk mornings, warm sunshine, gently colorful leaves, and the most incredible displays of cirrus uncinas almost every day. Every night it gets chilly enough to discourage the mosquites from laying eggs. Soon enough all the bugs will be gone until next spring.

And on and on. I love the wheel of the year. I depend on it!

Do you like my shoes? (below) They're Fluevogs. I love these shoes.

4 comments:

Barbara said...

I love your bright blue shoes. Does your prediction about the end of the 2007 bugs apply to fruit flies as well? We have an infestation of them that is not going away easily!

Unknown said...

Ooh, cool shoes, and they look incredibly comfortable. You're lucky to enjoy dramatic season changes, our climate is more Californian so we seem to slide from one season to another and you barely notice the change unless you're really watching for it - it's very subtle but no less beautiful! ;-)

lettuce said...

oh goodie - thanks for the pic. of the fluevogs, they look fab. i hope you have no blisters.

Similar weather here at the moment, I've been getting quite obsessive about taking leaf photos....

mouse (aka kimy) said...

loverly shoes! I just got my first pair of new shoes in over 2 years, the first time I ordered shoes via the internet! whew they fit! but looking at these blue shoes I'm thinking brown was a bit boring! but I might be needing some new winter boots, have to access the soles of my current pair, blue boots. like the alliteration!