Autumn Glow

We dined on the back patio of the Sidetrack yesterday evening, for what will most likely be the last time this year, this being the end of October and all, despite the fact that yesterday’s high temperature was in the high seventies.  So far, the seasons of 2023 have been winter, spring, summer, fall, summer, fall, and now summer again. 

     After dinner, we moseyed on over to the Morris Lawrence Building at Washtenaw Community College for a concert by the Washtenaw Community Band, called Flights of Fantasy.  Many members of the band and audience wore costumes for the occasion, and the programming had a decidedly spooky bent.  My favorite selection was “The Haunted Carousel,” by Erika Svanoe, which has a part written for theremin.  The part is designed to be played using an amplified iPad, according to the composer, but it sure sounds like a theremin—eerie and science fiction-y.  A passing band member said, after the concert, “I need to take theremin lessons.”

     Yard decorations this Halloween seem to have two main themes:  spiders, and skeletons at work.  The spiders that started showing up last month were about eighteen inches across.  They’re bigger now.  One in the yard of a house on Georgetown, for instance, has legs somewhere between five and six feet long.  Passersby will find it perched in a heroically sized web— provided the arachnid doesn’t see them first.  Excellent skeletons at work include three that are gardening on Yorktown.  At least, you hope they’re gardening, and not digging yet another grave in a yard that already has a few.  A house on Lexington has also captured three skeletons mid-movement, this group open to more than one interpretation as well.  It’s not clear whether they’re having a bicycle accident or perform ing an elaborate bicycle trick, but they’re definitely worth seeing.

     Also worth seeing and, fortunately, impossible to miss, are the maples whose leaves have turned such a fabulous yellow in the last week.  We have a number of them close enough to the house that, at this point of any given autumn, reflect such a golden glow into one of the upstairs rooms that I’ve been known to reach into the room in passing, to turn off the light.

     Our friend Pat is a creative and accomplished cook.  An invitation to dinner at Pat and Len’s house is always a special occasion.  Last Sunday, as Pat placed her culinary offerings on her splendidly laid table, she told us she had taken special care that the food be lovely, as an homage to my mother.  Mom was an artist.  I had shared with Pat, many years ago, that every meal Mom ever set before us was beautiful.  Mom would have been delighted with Pat’s Sunday offerings.  We certainly were.

     One platter in particular stays in my mind.  On it, Pat had arranged little roasted squash.  The squash were sweet dumpling, a form of delicata, and Pat had placed homemade applesauce in the centers.  The colors of the roasted flesh and applesauce were warm.  What really pushed the visual appeal of the dish over the top, however, was the translucent sides of the squash.  Like our upstairs room, they appeared to have lights inside them.  In combination with the translucence of the onyx wineglasses Pat had chosen, that platter of glowing squash was memorable.

     It brought to mind another memorable meal with friends, this one when we were first married.  Friends came for brunch, and we had such a lovely time together that we lingered for hours.  I’ve thought of that meal many times since.  We were young and healthy.  Life was before us.  And everyone we loved was still alive.

     Dinner with Pat and Len on Sunday was similarly memorable.  The food was superlative, in addition to being lovely to look upon.  The company was splendid.  Pat and Len are that special couple, one where the men enjoy each other’s company as much as the women enjoy each other’s; we are old and dear friends.  It is no longer the case that we are young and healthy.  Our lives are, in large part, behind us now.  So many of the people we’ve loved are no longer here.  So many.

     On the other hand, new lives have joined ours since that brunch, children and grandchildren and friends.  We know even better to cherish the time we have with those we love, the importance of spending time together and making new memories.  The glow of what is lovely and warming to our hearts, things past and adventures still to come, sustains us as autumn—or, today, summer—moves inevitably toward winter.

27 October 2023