Bare Branches

Mon-

A couple of weeks, a few big gales, some frosty mornings, all have harmonized to harmonize the vegetation and the sky.  The season is now obvious at a glance, the cycle of rest and endurance has arrived.  Time to pull out the winter clothes for those of us unable to simply hibernate and wait.

That, of course, is only true for anyone who still pays attention to nature.  An awful lot of people, it seems, find that the roads are still passable, the stores are still open, work continues, and the outdoors continues as barely noticed background.  After all, it is almost Thanksgiving!  Christmas around the corner.  New Year’s, Super Bowl, winter vacations line up in one long rush. Spring will arrive on a carefully orchestrated flight path which guides everyone through dark and cold with minimum inconvenience. 
Tue-

Even without brilliant greens and whatever other colors flash in the foliage, a harbor is a visually arresting place.  Ports along the New England coast have always shown that.  The weathered old docks and the brilliant blues of reflected skies are purely elemental, in some ways enhanced by the lack of competition.

Now, of course, we get ready for the ice, which arrives later and later each year, if in fact it arrives at all.  At some point, there will certainly be snow, but here the bad weather in November and December is usually gales, cold, and rain. 
Wed-

 

The brutality of the season can make us instinctively recoil.  The vegetation looks like its been murdered, and the looming clouds promise more of the same.  It’s still relatively warm, but I instinctively clutch my collar tighter and hurry on.

Civilization is never more prized than now.  I can visit this scene and then move on, happily back in a home that is brightly lit, warm, and with whatever food might strike my fancy.  Those that wish to go back to primitive pre-industrial bliss are welcome to it _ the reason civilization exists with all its hassles is that most people are grateful to have options.

Thu-

Four hundred years ago, Thanksgiving day, this continent was all but virgin natural, unaffected by industry and the massive works of mankind.  The waters were clear and swarming with wildlife, as was the land.  A few tribes lived here more or less peacefully as far as we can tell, people just like us.  No houses, more vegetation along the beaches, no docks, they were probably glad to see the insects leave, although maybe they grew used to the harsh winters and nasty mosquitoes.

I am a child of my times, and never wish to go back.  I like modern civilization, although I sorrow at the stupid and unnecessary destruction we are wreaking on our ecological heritage.  I am grateful for all I have enjoyed during my lifetime, while concerned about how much our descendants will curse our name. This day, in particular, seems a moment poised between two worlds _ the Eden that once was, and whatever horrible wasteland the planet is being rapidly turned into.
Thu-

 

It would be nice to think the freshwater mill pond was filled with migrating waterfowl, but the birds on the water are just the local seagulls and geese who have acclimated to year round residency (although sometimes this time of year their instincts get the best of them and they fly a v formation up the harbor and back.)  It’s actually already too late for most of the migrations.  The small bufflehead ducks arrived from the north a few weeks ago, but they prefer the salty waves.

Nothing heroic in this picture.  Just, as advertised, bare branches and brown leftover seeds.  Even the leaves have already sunk to the bottom, beginning another cycle into organic detritus.  You look at a picture like this and it is always hard to believe that in just a few months it will all be softening yellow and red and green once more.  Most people up here, truthfully or not, will tell you they like the contrasts.

Sat-

The tide goes in and out twice a day regardless of the weather, although the moon and a big storm may exaggerate its effect.  Unlike the leaves, the colorful kayaks never fall off their perches, and lend a festive note to the acid clear blue and sharply etched branches in this Canadian air.

Beauty, like happiness, is all in our heads, and not always foremost in our consciousness.  There are many other cares and worries and chores that must be done.  But if we need them, beauty and happiness are always there, somewhere, even if somewhat insignificant by Hollywood standards. 

Sun-

Coindre Hall does look a little like a mad doctor’s laboratory, starkly rising amidst deadish trees on the crest of the hill.  You almost expect bloodcurdling screams and the crash of monster feet through the underbrush.  We could probably add to the drama with howling winds and tattered clouds racing across a full moon _ ah, but that’s just a story.

Humans like to slip stories into whatever they encounter.  It helps us remember, and put things in perspective and just have fun where otherwise there might be none.  Some would say the age of great storytelling is gone, that mass media has dulled our creativity into oatmeal but just walking around for a while can bring it all back quickly.  Surprisingly, our stories often make us appreciate what is really there more than we would if we were just looking with a blank mind.

 
 

 

  

Last Leaves

Mon-

Somewhat presumptuous to pick the last leaves.  They fall almost in a normal curve _ first a few, more and more, a whole bunch, less and less, and then a few singletons that may last until April.  But at some point, you know they are mostly done, and the few remaining on the trees turn into curiosities.

We can ascribe all kinds of deeper meaning to this, and construct stories as O.Henry did.  But you don’t really need much more than your basic instincts to realize that something has changed and the world will soon be different than it was.
Tue-

You can almost feel the leaves dropping one by one.  Sometimes that is true, but often they are ripped in great bunches by the increasingly howling gales from the north as one storm system chases another.  Sensible people stay inside at such times and miss the drama on the branches.  The next day, we notice, there are a lot fewer up there than there were the day before.

These are the weeks of full transition, just as you get the sudden blossoming when the earth warms in the spring.  The difference is in our inner perceptions _ we see this as a spiral into cold and death and tend to get depressed knowing the sun continues to go away for another month.  Time grows darker, and we worry about making through the coming season.
Wed-

Summer barbeques in the parking lot are just memories, most of the boats are secured or out of the water entirely.  Nobody expects good sailing days to return until spring, and for most people it would be an even rarer coincidence if they happened to be on a weekend.  So the yacht club goes quiet, except for the inevitable bustle of blowing leaves and winterizing the equipment.

I like looking at boats, but I hate being on them _ the minute I am on board I feel trapped and I can’t wait to get out.  It’s a peculiar form of nautical claustrophobia.  Maybe like the ancients in arcadia I simply need the presence of dryads near me all the time.
Thu-

Lonely guy.  Tough not to become anthropomorphic about almost anything.  We have a built in sympathy that often gets in the way of reality (whatever that may be.)

So that one leaf is symbolic of _ well of whatever I want to make it symbolic of.  And your story would be different.  And most of the time, both of us are way too busy to bother making stories about everything we run into.  I think it’s a miracle that we can ever agree on anything at all.

Fri-

Across the remnants of the mill pond, still mostly fresh water, the startled ducks and geese have just flown away.  Boats loom in the salt water across the dam bulkhead.

Quiet little inlets seem worlds away from everyone else.  Yet, like almost everywhere around me, I find signs of heavy use even here _ a well-tramped mud path, for example.  Maybe photographers trying for unusual seasonal beauty to sell at the fairs, maybe old bearded philosophers, the imagination can insert just about anything.  Simply focusing on reality of dry stalks and stripped branches against blue sky is often the hardest thing you can do.
Sat-

 

 

Bittersweet, appropriate name for the season as well.  In a few weeks the berries will lose some color and start drying, but for now it’s a happy reminder of harvests that are pretty much done by now.

Now that we don’t have the agricultural cycle to ground us any more, it’s easy to remember that this time of year was a kind of respite after the long and arduous months of rapid harvest and preservation.  Not yet into the salted and dried staples of winter, but very little to get out of the fields, by now even the potatoes should be safely stored.  If the provisions looked adequate for the coming months, thanksgiving was surely called for.

Sun-

We still have a patch of woods here and there _ this happens to be an obscure bit of Mill Dam park _ accessible to the public.  In my youth, you could take off into the woods and go for miles in any direction, but nowadays on the East Coast you get about three hundred yards at most before you hit someone’s property. 

Fortunately, this being an old town, a lot had been preserved in parks and public spaces.  I feel sorry for the newer suburbs, often planned with nothing more in mind than endless similar houses on zoned plots of land, and the only way to get away is to drive a pretty good distance.

  

  

Brown Harmonies

Mon -

Whistler painted a series of works he called “Nocturnes,” using muted restricted colors.  Nature in the fall and winter does the same thing, reducing the full range of colors to produce equally subtle masterpieces.  What is left, after a while, are only the infinitely varied shades of brown of vegetation, and the striking blues of the sky and its reflection in water.

We are used to spectacular displays in art, so most of the photographs of the season skip right from the dramatic brilliant foliage of early fall to the harsh crispness of deep cold and snow.  But the world doesn’t work that way.  Shifts are often subtle and less theatrical, but deeply dramatic nevertheless.
Tue-

Brown shades vary tremendously but _ well _ they are all still brown.  Kind of like our individual personalities, I guess.  The boats have thinned out a good deal, all being put up safe on land.  Soon the harbor crews will be going around to pick up the buoys.

The last of the green in the spartina will fade soon, but otherwise it remains almost the same until ice in the harbor flattens it and breaks off some of the blades, to wash up on the various beaches for cleanup in the spring.  My particular joy in this time of year is that I get such scenes almost entirely to myself, either because they are at work or because they haven’t learned to discover the beauty of bundling up and spending time with colder nature.
Wed-

Seasons help us see the familiar as strange.  This is a trait we should always cultivate.  There is little more rewarding than a fresh eye, which makes the common world ever wondrous.

So this is just a driveway at Coindre Hall, caught between Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Nothing special, and yet very special; just a moment in time and yet portending bit changes.  Not a whole lot of brown here, I guess, but I always regard yellow and dark red as honorary browns anyway.
Thu-

The first snow lightens the dark sky, as the trees rapidly darken with each colder night.  Many of them by now have been stripped of foliage anyway.  It’s always surprising how quickly this all plays out, after what seems an endlessly long interim period of green and gradual coloration.

Dark and pensive folks will relate the story of the grasshopper and the ant, neglecting the inconvenient fact that the grasshopper dies sooner and more certainly.  The sad truth is that if you have saved all summer to have a picnic on this lawn today you need to dress warmly, and come with a different set of aesthetic expectations.
Fri-

Last rose of summer, eh?  Maybe a novel in that somewhere, if I could just find the appropriate vampires, adolescents, or mad artists hanging around.  Anyway, since it actually exists it is not an anomaly, and the ragged trees on the opposite shore show how late the year is growing.

In not much more than a week the muted and varied shades of brown have darkened and lost most of their glow.  There are also a lot less of them up there, which means the ones that remain are even more susceptible to the wind gusts frequently spilling in from Canada.  Nature is a constant pageant, although whether we consider it a tragedy, comedy, or ongoing adventure series is pretty much up to us.
Sat-

Ducks presumably happily floating on the Coindre Hall pond.  You couldn’t have a more traditional mid fall picture if you composed all the elements in a studio.  Soon enough this may be ice covered and certainly the area in the back will be nothing but dull brown branches _ but that is a wholly different and equally beautiful aesthetic.

One of the nice things, at least when you’re retired as I am, is that the onset of poorer weather means the exit of fair-weather crowds.  The people taking their dogs out, for example, falls off dramatically with wind and temperature, and tends to jam into a few hours on the weekends when it is more a duty than a pleasure.  I’m a crotchety old gent and selfishly enjoy having the loveliness to myself.
Sun-

This neighborhood used to be a summer colony, back in the 1920’s, where the not quite rich would come to rub elbows with the wealthy of the gold coast.  Glen Na Little trail is a remnant of that time, although many of the tiny bungalows have been winterized and expanded or torn down.

Water is not required for there to be beauty.  In some ways, water is a bit too easy.  One of the great things about the modern digital era is that so many people have opened their eyes and constantly practice seeing their environment, if only to have something to send to friends every few minutes.

  

 

Weeds and Seeds

Mon-

Successful flowers become fruits or seeds, and November is their time of display.  These goldenrods are almost as handsome now as they were when bright yellow a month ago.  The white puffs, the various methods of making sure there is adequate dispersal, the pods left behind are all fascinating.

Our tendency is to look at the very short run or the very long.  We see that it is getting cold and soon winter will be here and we brace for it, ignoring this immediate day.  We plan ahead to the warmer summer to come and years of what might be.  But nature just cycles on in a rhythm of sprout, grow, flower, seed, spread over and over in a way that would calm us immensely, if we only take the time to contemplate it properly.

Tue-

So many seeds are produced from one plant that, as Darwin realized, they would soon fill the world with offspring if not destroyed by being eaten or otherwise fail to germinate.  Yet such wasteful ways are what the world is filled with.  A terrifying concept, really, which nonetheless informs our aesthetics so that seeing all these doomed little bits of potential future life is somehow beautiful.

This time of year is prone to meditations on death and birth and cycles.  After all, the leaves fall, the ground cover dries brown, cold arrives and these seeds _ the hope of the spring _ are everywhere.  How I fit into all this, if at all, is the most natural question there could ever be.  Yet, its implications are so frightening that it is easier to head off to the mall and shop a bit more.

Wed-

Scarlet rose hips and dry brown ragweed, not even that well composed, in front of the brilliant blues of an autumn sky reflected in the cooling seawater.  I’m not sure words add anything at all.  If you have been there and seen this, it makes sense, and if you have not, you wonder what’s the big deal.

The trouble with photographs and descriptions and all virtual reality is precisely that they are not reality.  No matter what their claims, they cannot deliver the experience of being present.  All I am giving here is an incomplete witness of what I enjoyed on my morning walk.

Thu-

Pokeweed purple just about all gone now, soon to be nothing but brown stalks sticking out of coming snows.  Whatever remaining fruits there are have been pretty much eaten by wildlife or stripped by winds, and what hang on all increasingly shrivel.  Nothing really profound here, except that everything can be worthy of notice and produce beauty.

In another month, a shot from this same hill would show the harbor clearly though bare trees.  The joy of knowing any place well is the glory of its changes over time and the memories of those transformations.

Fri-

Nothing special _ just the bare remnants of lives lived_ but isn’t that something?  Most of the day we flash by in cars or thinking about abstractions and never notice the fabulous decorations always available.  There are those who will spend hours in a museum, oohing and aahing at the work of master craftsfolk, and fail to open their eyes to the masterpieces around every day.

Ragweed as one of God’s masterpieces.  That is an unusual enough thought with which to end this conversation.

Sat-

Some seeds bleach out to near white rather than brown, and to a casual eye seem to be incongruously in bloom in the cold breeze.  In fact, there are an infinite variety of hues, for those with the patience to spend some time and see.

The immensity of the world can be stunning.  This is one tiny corner of one tiny lot in one tiny town.  The world for all practical purposes goes on forever at such scales.  It is our loss if we lose local perspective by getting overwhelmed by the grand narratives of the evening news or twitter twaddle.

Sun-

Beauty seeps in all around us all the time, if we only try to see, even in the most unlikely places.  We have been shaped over billions of years to select and appreciate whatever fragments of the “real” universe we inhabit, and as we experience those patterns we become happy.

It is always easy to find beauty in nature, for we are part of nature.  Usually, we can also find beauty in the works of humans as well.  Part of the appreciation of our world is to be able to find how lovely our existence can be.