Which is it? Not the end of summer? Or definitelythe start of fall?
Down at the creek, I can’t make up my mind. The end of summer is heartbreaking. It is dark now when I sit by the window with my coffee and my notebook. The night air on my pillow is cool. There will not be another day at the beach where the hot hot sun makes me anticipate the cold cold water of Lake Washington. It is heartbreaking. Also, I am heartbroken.
But fall…the beginning of fall is a delicious settling into home, a welcome retreat after being outside for so long. Back in. Boots, fire in the fireplace, soup. Getting ready to make altars to my beloved dead, for their time is drawing near.
Of course the land doesn’t have a line at the edge of the season. There is a low, golden slant to the light, and the spiders on their large and perfect spiral webs are now the size of my thumbnail. These are signs of fall but not yet deep fall, not flooding the banks, salmon returning, smell of rain followed by smell of frost fall… For now, there are leaves on the Indian plum that are both green and yellow but mostly they are green. The creek is slightly higher but the earth still smells dry.