Beaches in Autumn

Wide sand as empty as a promotional postcard of remote island getaways.

• Huntington preserves numerous town salt-water beaches, and also contains a large state park and a national wildlife preserve.  On some unwelcoming weather days in autumn and winter, it is possible to enter a realm of solitude and relative quiet.  Distant shores hide suburban development, wide expanses of water shimmer as always, shoreline stretches invitingly abandoned.
• Of course, nothing is absolute.  This is one of the most crowded areas on Earth.  Usually there is at least one person _ perhaps walking a dog _ somewhere in sight, or a motor boat on the cold waves.  Leaf blowers in season echo their distant whine.  And too frequently, flight paths from the city airports direct descending jets directly overhead.
• However, compared to other beaches in the developed world, these remain in an almost pristine natural state.  No boardwalks or massive high rises or ridiculous mansions.  No kites or dune buggies.  No tourists or gaggles of school day-outings.  It seems almost a crime that such beauty and meditative opportunity is effortlessly available to me.

Reeds are evocative in every season, always beautiful, poignant in autumn.

• Huntington was oriented to maritime activities from its founding in 1643.  Boomers think they have lived through whirlwind changes, but such were minor compared to those faced by early colonials.  In 1620, Pilgrims fled from religious persecution (including burnings and beheadings) into a cold land almost depopulated of natives (dead from repeated plagues.)  In theocratic charge of their own persecutions, Massachusetts Puritans banished many of the tens of thousands who arrived in Boston over the next two decades into Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, and Long Island.
• Until the 1950’s, the Huntington area remained a rural economy connected to the wider world by water_ exporting lumber to the West Indies, supplying food to New York City, becoming a summer playground for day-tripper casino excursions, Gold Coast estates.  After WWII, of course, suburbs grew as people wanted to be near the ocean and sound.
• And now, a pleasant place indeed.  Many old mansions and their grounds are now public areas.  Many early industrial sites like brickyards or boatyards have become public beaches.  Marshes and wetlands, once used to grow salt hay, are forbidden to new construction.  Much seems to have been preserved, and on a dreary day at Target Rock one can almost feel transported back to the seventeenth century.

I’m not yet adjusted to a remarkably frigid gusty north wind.

• All this, probably futile.  I realize I am one of the last generations who will be able to walk such beaches, which will be underwater in the not too distant future.  Disastrous storms will make inland living far more attractive than terrors of the coast.  Almost anything may happen, and almost none of it appears to be good.
• When I was young, I worried about nuclear war.  When older mused on bleak certainty of a universe dying in a few billion years no matter what I did.  Now there are other worries and concerns.  Nuclear war held off for a while, perhaps climate change will be less drastic than feared.  The end of the universe has dramatically shrunk from billions of years to a (personal) decade or so _ if I am lucky.
• In the meantime, a walk on an autumn beach on a drizzly day is a treat not to be missed.  I need not fly anywhere, spend money, nor miss the comforts of home later to rest my weary legs.  All the glory of existence amid wonders of nature are near at hand, and still available if I only make an effort.

Guilty Thanks

Holiday rose is a small miracle _ like much of life _ except that no miracles are truly small.

• I was raised a good solid Episcopalian.  I dutifully attended weekly church, my parents unconcerned with religion at home.  November Sundays would echo Thanksgiving hymns from stone walls, sermons would focus on our undeserved blessings.  “I have done those things I ought not to have done and left undone those things I ought to have done and there is no health in me.”  A solid and lasting rebuke to hubris.
• I have sometimes been infected by my local culture,  believing that I am responsible for my good fortune and wonderful life.  I staunchly bellow how hard I have worked for everything I now enjoy.  The sin of envy creeps upon me as I regard neighbors or media phantoms better rewarded with less effort.  I wax wrathful as the unworthy are enriched, and the worthy (guess one I consider myself) are denied their due.
• Sanity sometimes returns, and I acknowledge that almost all I have is the result of good fortune.  Born into the right family at the right time and place, blessed with good health and a stable society, lucky in love and career.  Following such meditation, my only remaining emotion is guilt.

Bittersweet accents this season, more prominent each day as surrounding foliage drops away.

• Humans are born helpless, but most have capacity to gain godlike powers over their first decades.  Yet wealth and opportunity and the possibility of happiness are unfairly spread.  How much guilt should I feel?  What should I do to ameliorate reality?  I believe in protected public property (what used to be called “the commonwealth”),  strong government to protect basic human rights, and minimal levels of economic and social security (food, clothing, shelter) for everyone at all times.   
• True psychopaths are rare _ most people easily relate to others.  Our major difficulty has always been that we also easily form small tribes to exclude and ignore everyone else.  Various rationalizations are always provided for such divisions, very few logical to a naïve outside observer.   Tribes remain the largest human problem of this age and how we handle them may determine if our species survives.

Quiet dirt road through woods evokes eighteenth century _ oops, wait, my cell phone is ringing.

• We mythologize the first Thanksgiving, forgetting that Pilgrims and Puritans were what we would now call cultist weirdos,  who believed that all mankind except a few predestined “elect” were condemned to everlasting hell no matter what they did.  Our current celebration has none of that fervor, and tries to be a time when we are happy with what we have.  That too, is a mythologized counterthought to our daily belief _ which is that we must always strive to be better, and we will eventually get what we deserve, and we are to be judged by what we accomplish or accumulate.
• People do strive for their own and the common good, which is a fine thing.  Capitalism has proved one way to reward economic roles appropriately so that material comforts increase.  Whether actual people temporarily filling certain roles should be so much wealthier than others is an increasingly puzzling question.
• I wonder when enough is too much, whether anyone’s quality of life is indeed measured by the quantity of goods privately owned _ or even by how many or how powerful their deeds of creation or destruction.   I have found it much easier to redirect sources of happiness than to try to fulfill impossible strivings.  Sunset, moonglow, autumn leaves are still, thankfully, free.  Am I truly happier playing a phone videogame than spending an hour with nature?
• I remain most thankful that I can still freely contemplate such things, in almost absolute comfort and joy.

Aftermath

Perhaps one day of glorious color, one blustery downpour, and remains nothing but memories.

• After math, there will be geography …  The etymology of words and phrases can seem strange.
• Peak color passes quickly, as do many strong climaxes.  A furious blizzard or hurricane transitions to deep calm.  An election leaves winners and everyone else figuring out what happens next.  Soon, such moments of reflection recede.
• How much snow has fallen, how many branches are down, how many bags of leaves must be picked up, what does this election mean for laws and taxes?  What next? Sometimes it is as trivial as picking up the detritus of foliage, sometimes there are life-changing repercussions,  sometimes the political landscape actually shifts enormously.  Making sense of what happened can take a while.
• But mostly, after these cyclical happenings, life just adjusts and goes on.  There will be another week of peak color a year hence, other elections, more storms.  We will overlay their fresh challenges onto fading memories of past excitement.

Not the primrose path _ leaf drifts lead only to snow, ice, bitter cold, and dreams of another summer.

• After the excitement of events, when the circus leaves town, there remain lingering changes.  The leaves are down and cannot be put back up.  The government will do things it would not otherwise have done.  I must clean up the driveway, I must endure the new regime.  I fit my life, as always, to my environment, changed as it might be.
• Aftermaths take a while.  Leaves cling to trees in some cases well into winter.  Inertia in government guarantees that few dramatic changes will be in place until next year, if then.  Meanwhile, I must sleep, eat, and carry out the mundane business of staying alive each day.
• That does not mean changes are not real.  Trees become bare, snow falls.  Taxes and laws change.  I enjoy each day partially in the recognition that it is unique in all time and space, and will never exactly occur again.

Fog is common this time of year, warm to cold, cold to warm, air different than water _ but always mysterious and quieting.

• Fog is a good metaphor to illustrate aftermath.  Nothing is certain _ there may be immense upheavals or the stability of the world may return everything to “almost normal.”  As we pass through, we cannot tell, dim outlines prove deceptive.  Only when looking back, as time clears our vision, can we truly evaluate the final effect of intense events.
• Another perfect metaphor, of course, is sex.  So much anticipation leading up to frenzied climax.  Then endorphin lethargy (which used to be accompanied by a cigarette.)  And finally _ sleep.  Followed by days exactly as days have always been all our time before.

Peak Peek

Furious wonderful flaming days, then litter, then trash to be collected and decomposed.  Such are the days of our lives _ oops, I mean of these maple leaves.

• Peak canopy color this year has arrived nearly simultaneously with peak political fervor.  Foliage is spectacular, campaigns less so.  In either case, I wonder who is paying attention.
• Colorful trees are easily ignored.  Children are in their own world, enjoying everyday miracles without need for extra attention to flowers in spring or leaves in fall.  Teenagers and young adults are wrapped up in each other, with other events a mere shadow background.  Working folks are glued to smartphones _ possibly the only nature ever encountered in their busy busy lives is viral video.  Retirees have time but are easily distracted. 
• Nasty politics are monopolized by ignorant fanatics, cranky ancient crones, and blubbery old gents who are angry that the world they anticipated never happened.  Nature in their world is basically invisible except, perhaps, on their private postage-stamp property where others dare not tread.  Brightly colored drifting detritus will not distract them from raging self-importance. 

“Old Faithful” the most colorful maple, or possibly sugar maple, in the area.  I am instantly nostalgic for its color each season.

• When pressed, millennials and other young voters claim that votes do not matter.  It is easier to accomplish real change with social media.  I hate to agree, but they have a point.  The bedrock of cultural custom, the vagaries of civilized fads, are transmitted and if necessary enforced by tweets, videos, and funding pages, just as they used to be by churches and newspapers.  Distant and glacial Eighteenth century modes of government seem increasingly irrelevant in this age, especially when all rulers appear to be corrupt pawns of global plutocracy.
• Voting, compared to enjoying seasonal landscapes, even seems pretty sill to me.  My vote in this district, in this country, makes no difference at all in a population of 360 million.  Better I should stare at a brightly backlit orange sugar maple,  or yellow hickory leaves shimmering in the breeze,  
• Once upon a time I did believe in political discourse, in trying to compromise, in understanding other’s points of view.  The fanatics have left me behind.  I prefer to ignore their brittle shouts and listen to calls of migrating birds or the rustle of boughs as they lose their covering.  But as a hopeless romantic, I will go and vote anyway.

Somewhat menacing beauty portents long brown vistas which will soon settle in.

• Elections and seasons occur with cyclical regularity.  Like sunsets, each easily overlays all other similar experiences.  I hardly remember any particular elections nor autumns.  A few sharp experiences _ a flaming woodland dell in New Hampshire decades ago _ may stand out, but usually I can only remember, at best, what happened this year or last.
• Politics fade too.  The great debates of my youth, the great angers of today, inevitably yield to the passions of the future and monotonies of daily life.  Voting seems to have little impact _ even the most momentous changes such as civil rights or losing the Vietnam War were, on later analysis, just as much from social momentum as from new representatives gaining power.  Politicians often go with the flow just like the rest of the human herd.
• Peak foliage is wonderful.  Peak politics is tiresome.  After this peak, life will go on.  But I am kind of glad I have been stirred by either, as spice to my daily existence.