Hello, October!
Suddenly the leaves turn red, yellow, and orange; the night temperatures dip into the thirties, and I enjoy sitting in my front yard both in the morning and the early evening. Ahhh . . . those morning coffees and evening wines . . .
The steeple front, right, is on the old Methodist church, now our community center. The steeple across the canyon (you may have to zoom in if the image is too small) is on St. George’s Episcopal church, where I attend. Sunday services have never stopped at St. George’s since the church opened in 1878.
Just a month ago it was much too hot to sit here for any length of time. It is an unusual yard, not yet shaded, one that we created by tearing down an old carport that covered the entire front of our old parsonage for sixty years. This reclaimed space has an incredible view of two one-hundred-plus-year-old church steeples and an impressive hillside on this, the northern end of our section of the Toiyabe Mountains, but no large trees yet. We have planted an oak, a cottonwood, and a blue spruce there, but they are small still.
That evening wine.
Our little town of Austin, Nevada is located in central Nevada’s sparsely-populated, history-rich Lander County in “. . .the Toiyabe Range, a mountain range in Lander and Nye counties, Nevada, United States. The range is included within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. The highest point in the range is Arc Dome (11,788 feet, 3592 m), an area protected as the Arc Dome Wilderness. The Toiyabe Crest Trail runs along the Toiyabe Range for over 70 miles, and is one of the most challenging and secluded trails in the United States.” U.S. Forest Service, www.fs.us.gov.
In October, we venture out on the mountain trails, we get supplies ready for the long winter to come, and we sit in quiet reverie, grateful for nature’s hush. Enjoying the splendor. Soon, it will be too cold to sit out here without a coat. Soon, there will be more time inside, tending the fire, cooking large pots of soups and stews, reading, and writing.
This gradual gathering of the special autumn light, the relish we feel as we take it in, and our own eventual inner-directed shift is a very great gift as the seasons change, I believe.
Mostly Marigolds! Some of my favorites.
Here is a poem of great beauty by John Keats on the season:
“To Autumn”
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Written September 19, 1819; first published in 1820. This poem is in the public domain.
Hello, October! And Welcome!
LakeArrowheadLadyWriter 
What I’m Reading: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Hello, Readers! I just finished The Midnight Library and wanted to linger over it a while longer. One way to preserve and examine a recent experience is to write about it. Another way would be to get together with my friends at the Austin Ladies Book Club, but it’s been a busy summer and we are on hiatus. Here then, is my short take on Matt Haig’s “whimsical” novel (as The Washington Post aptly calls it).
It’s an intriguing little book, chockful of tiny little chapters, each one the piece of a puzzle containing alternate lives for our damaged, yet clever and likable heroine, Nora Seed. It’s midnight, and as Nora’s consciousness flickers between life and death, a wise and kind librarian directs Nora to endless books of possibilities—the myriad different paths her choices may have led her, and may lead her still.
This is a puzzle many of us have played in our minds, and often, as in The Midnight Library, we move these pieces around in the wee hours of the night.
Imagine if I had… What if I hadn’t… If only I could go back and change…
Regrets. Lost opportunities.
Shame.
Like Nora Seed, I’ve had plenty of these, and being the imperfect human I am, I continue to accrue new ones regularly. It can be a heavy load. The nights can be very dark.
Sometimes, a book can help. Some night soon when I drift off to sleep, perhaps I will find myself in a magic library like Nora’s. After all, I often have vivid dreams where things I experience in my waking hours revisit me in interesting and revealing ways (sometimes horrifying ways, too, but this isn’t that kind of book, thank goodness). So it could happen. Maybe tonight.
The Midnight Library is an obvious win-win for me, the lady lucky enough to run the local library and the lady who finds reading and writing endlessly captivating. It is wonderful for all the right reasons. Fun, and funny, too. Sweet, sad, insightful, and smart—it’s a little volume that may just lighten your heart.
If you read it, let me know what you think!
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