another apple to slice into pieces

Andrew Wyeth once said he preferred the seasons of Autumn and Winter- "when you feel the bone structure of the landscape- the loneliness of it..." And I got to thinking about what waits beneath a season like Autumn as we attempt, so desperately, to listen to silence. I love Autumn. I suppose it is my favorite season. Autumn on the East Coast is spelled out in apple orchards, the first pumpkin bread loaf, leaves of burnt orange and crimson, and a crispness and vitality of the air. Yet, underneath there rests this sweet and solemn sadness... as if all that is is change- a perpetual transitioning.

And I thought, how odd, that this should be my most beloved season when I so dislike focusing on change and forward momentum. I prefer living in the moment and a focus that resides so purely and intently in the here and now. But in Fall, it seems as though our here and now and then and there are one and the same. What to make of that?

And then there's this question of mortality. You breathe in the fervor of such crisp, deliciously chilled air- that campfire caramel apple scent. Yet, leaves descend and summer bitterly dies beneath them. We are that much more aware of our mortality. This very real, simple fact that nothing lasts... as Frost says, nothing gold can stay... echoes.

A dear friend recently wrote me a letter discussing this idea of mortality. She herself has become a witness to loved ones in the face of their own impermanence. She is now in a place of recognizing this sense that we all live and grow old and become incapable of living how we once did... and then it simply all comes to an end. And so cyclically we each bear witness to one an other's humanness- the very certainty that we shall fade like changing leaves falling off of trees to soon rest beneath snow and disappear.

Though for whatever reason, I find myself drawn to Autumn. There is something sobering and beautiful and quietly sad about this change in time made so visible in colors and smells and sensations. I feel like George Eliot who said:

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."