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It’s going to be fall soon.
My new home in Florida clings to summer, the air damp and warm, the trees in bloom with great, waxy green leaves. The lawn is verdant, and even on cloudy days one could not mistake the weather for a drizzly winter morning.
I know this Indian Summer, as we called it in my childhood. It’s familiar–the soaring temperatures of early September that made all of your new back-to-school outfits unbearably hot, the sunny afternoons that made you sweat in the back seat of the station wagon, feet burning in their sturdy shoes. Our summers in California were not as fierce as they are here, and the air was not damp. But the season always insisted on giving its all right there at the end, making you long for the quiet, dark classroom where you might be allowed to lay your head on the cool desk after recess.
I had a four-year respite from this blazing transition from summer to fall. For four years, I lived on a hill which produced an autumn that will remain my personal standard for fall until I am old and grey. It featured trees in brilliant color, crisp mornings, slanting afternoon light. Every step crunched underfoot, dark puddles reflected brilliantly blue sky, and the air was filled with faintly acrid burning leaves. The orchard up the road offered its tartly sweet apple cider.
One afternoon I found myself along a favorite path, trees nearly devoid of their bright colors, the dirt instead littered with colorful confetti. It was a wooded trail to which I still return in my memory. I would pass along the path, solitary but safe, and come out upon the granite boulders and the sea crashing beneath. And then I would sit on the massive stone and stare out to the horizon. It was the perfect place for writing, for thinking, for breathing.
I miss my perch on that slab of granite.
There is a deep nostalgia tied up in my memories of New England, with its red leaves and rain haunting music and white-steepled chapels. I cherish my own memories. And in some faint way, I feel connected to those who walked its roads centuries ago.
I have ancestors buried there in its soft soil. I feel a deep connection to its earth and sea, to the hopes and fears and prejudices and customs of a long-gone age. They came seeking a new world, and now they are dusty and ancient. And I am here and now and thinking of them.
I wonder whether my steps shared small paths they crossed long ago.
In three hundred years, I wonder if anyone will think of me, or know I lived. I will be long gone to glory, and one day we will be reunited, but on this beautiful bit of earth, I wonder if I will have left a trace. Perhaps my distant child will wander down that path through the woods, and marvel at the autumn beauty, and find the sea, and breathe a grateful prayer.
I hope she enjoys it as much as I did.
Building A Cathedral Takes Time 