One of the great joys of being a grown-up is looking back at your childhood and remembering the places that mattered- people yes, first and always, and animals of course, but place is important too. The moments we retain have context, and memories are built from the backdrop out, without the landscape and time, our memories are free-floating, like a dream scene in a Fellini movie. Nothing wrong with that- but it’s a movie.
Mountains have such grandeur and power. They hold possibility. The imagination can take us up paths and hiking trails, through brush and trees, over ridges and streams. Mountains are mysterious, and there’s the greatest mystery of all when one looms before you- what is on the other side?
Growing up in Big Stone Gap in the rolling crests of the Blue Ridge Mountains had me wondering what was on the other side of those hills. The changing palette of that moved through the seasons was as reliable as anyone you trusted with your life. There were the bonfire colors of fall, followed by the charcoal gray of winter, the pale green of spring and the deep blues of summer. One of the most troubling aspects of our climate in peril is the loss of those seasons, the certainty of them. I felt the seasons trained me for life- as soon as I became accustomed to one season, it changed. Change became the thing to accept and roll with- to work with- to yield to- in the face of Mother Nature.
Autumn is my anchor season- I have always loved the change in temperature, often abrupt, and the colors that change by the day. The sky seems more blue, the clouds get a Tiepolo patina, washed with coral and streaked with gold. There are baskets of mums, the weird flower that does not have the whimsy of a marigold or the elegance of a dahlia, but is hardy and sturdy and essential- it’s the hammer of the garden. Reliable. Its colors, whether yellow or purple- or maroon, go well with the flame colors of the changing leaves, and look perfectly appropriate next to pumpkins. Orange is the vibrant focus of autumn’s palette- and it seems as though everything goes with it. Orange is the roll-out to red, the color of Christmas. Orange is the warm-up, the autumnal show, the letting go. This year, let’s all surrender to the autumn, and maybe by the first snowfall, or if you live in parts that stay warm or cool off at night, surrender to the calendar. This is the time of year to let go, make new plans, pull friends and family together and prepare for the long winter... and put a pumpkin in the window.
