Light

Georgetown Boulevard in the fall is a contender for most gorgeous street in town, like Awixa in the spring.  I was riding up Georgetown with my friend Cindy this week, and she was so much in the thrall of the maples that line the street that she missed our turn.  That was on a rainy afternoon, which really didn’t do much for the colors.  Had it been a sunny afternoon like this one, we might never have gotten where we were going.

     The window at the top of our stairs looks out at the neighborhood treetops.  Each morning when I raise that blind, I hope to see masses of color still on the trees.  So far, the colors are still breathtaking.  It’s a privilege to live in a place as beautiful as Michigan.

     Fall is progressing, though.  Parts of the Upper Peninsula are shoveling out from under eighteen to twenty-four inches of October snow.  It hasn’t snowed here, but locusts and other trees with tiny leaves have started dropping them, so the locust allee along Green Road has golden leaves on the trees, lines of gold where grass edges the walk, and flecks of gold spinning and floating in the air.  The intense yellow of the back-yard maples is lighting up the rooms at the back upstairs of the house, and enough of their leaves have fallen and retained their color that they’re lighting the downstairs as well.   

     Last Saturday, my husband and I went around the house replacing burned-out lightbulbs in ceiling fixtures.  There were, sad to say, four of them, counting the one in the garage.  They’d piled up because changing them meant wrestling a ladder.  But having more light in the house again cheered me up enough that the contest with the ladder was worth it.  The days are shortening, now that we’ve passed the equinox, and we’re chafing at the early darkness. 

     A battery-replacement campaign followed close on the heels of lightbulb day.  The motion-activated lights on the stairway had ceased functioning.  My husband stocked up on AAs at Home Depot and came back fuming at how much the price has gone up, giving me a whole new take on Dylan Thomas’s, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”  Chuckling to myself over this new interpretation when I went downstairs after putting the ladder away, I flipped on the lights and blew out a bulb in a ceiling fixture.

     This is the time of year when it is most likely for me to have poetry as an earworm.  Always, always, in the autumn, Tennyson comes to mind.  “A spirit haunts the year’s last hours” is one I know well enough that it plays along in my head like music as I walk.  In fact, Tennyson named the poem, “Song.”  And if the piece stops, whatever aspect of autumn my eye falls upon starts it again.

     No matter the time of year, there is almost always a soundtrack playing in my head.  That’s not unusual; I suspect that’s the case with most people.  But yesterday was a personal best for me:  two pieces were playing at the same time.  “Fur Elise” overlaid “For All the Saints.”  On paper, the time signatures are hard to reconcile, but the version in my head rolled on unperturbed:  “… steals on the ear the distant triumph song.”

     We finished out the weekend with a wine and cheese get-together with our neighbors.  Wine and cheeses are generally affairs with short lead times.  No one is expected to produce a culinary masterpiece, although we all strive to so.  Having six people to sample one’s wares, instead of each household’s two, encourages us to extend ourselves.

     Furthermore, the distance from home to party venue is, at most, two houses.  That means a fussed- over presentation will arrive intact.  The soup Tanya made in a cheery red pot can be delivered, still warm, to Anne’s stove.  Everyone gets to try new tastes and to savor items as simple as bread and butter.  And, of course, the conversation never flags.  This time it even got a bit loud, as the libations were particularly popular.

     Part of the fun of these parties is the leaving.  We head out with tureen, serving plate, or tray empty or nearabouts, and no one has to get in a car and drive away.  We disperse through the darkness, pleased if we remembered to leave porch lights on to brighten the way home.  We hustle or not, depending on the weather.  Then we close the door behind us, pet the dog, and that’s that; we’re back in our own cocoon.  Our own well-lit cocoon.

21 October 2022