An autumn melange

The last of the leaves flutter whimsically from their branches to kiss the cold, wet ground for yet another life of nothingness. When in mid air they break into a dreamy dance wearing the most seductive of expressions, breaking many a heart in the go. Some dangle, hopeful and holding on to whatever minuscule remains of their life. The treetops have begun showing signs of baldness and bereavement. Naked and stripped of all joy, the colourless boughs will soon be left alone to battle yet another harsh winter.
Soon this mosaic canvas will give way to a desolate landscape of monotony and monochrome. Soon the familiar powdery white will embrace one and all in its cold, death-like grip. And soon the time for the big sleep will arrive, before longing and life sprout up their baby heads once again. To a new world, to a new beginning.

With my beloved season almost gone, in a fevered nostalgia of losing all the grandeur once again I tried stitching a mental patchwork of all the beautiful autumns we have lived here. How different and diverse the frames feel despite the similarity of the mood and the colours of autumn. Every picture has a little story to tell, of its place and the chunk of our life spent there. I must preserve it all, leaf by leaf. And so I have tried to recreate it here, as far and wide my kaleidoscopic memory could take me.

Our very first autumn. Maple leaves, fiery and feisty, framed right outside our bedroom window in Seattle. Blueberry picking in a nearby farm. The ripe vineyards of Napa Valley, wearing a golden glitter in the late afternoon sun. Amid fat, fleshy pumpkins in San Antonio, Texas. Perhaps the only patch of colour there in October. A twilight walk in the densely wooded metro-park in Cleveland, Ohio. Trees captured in their tallest possible glory, my most preferred angle of photographing them. A fascinated moment with the wee bit o' castle inside the park. Reaching out to the autumnberries before the birds take them all. A couple of idlers in the idyllic Vermont countryside, the dream destination for leaf-peepers. A carpet of maple leaves of every possible earthy hue. A day under the golden aspens and a clear blue sky in Colorado. Back to the ruts again after three long years of wandering, a foggy autumn morning in Seattle. Two happy feet set out on a drizzling autumn walk again. The completion of an autumn circle, and many more.

We've got everything...

... because we have each other."

So says the card. And our four years of togetherness.
Of sharing, carefree laughs, days bad and good
Weaving lost, cherished days of childhood.
For we go back a long way
And how, this little story will say...

From morning assemblies and sleepy Math lessons
To strange Latin names and ugly potions
They fought, they argued
Yet as the best of friends they stood
They signed vows to stick through thick and thin
Just as their teenage, highschool days had seen
He, to his engineering skills rushed
She got her Shakespeare and Byron rehearsed
And so friends they remained 
Till one fine day destiny intervened
Could there be more than just friendship
He mulled over it, thoughtful and neck-deep
Flabbergasted, she thought it was weird
The minds raced and hearts feared
But it was meant to be
That, they too, could well see
And so it has been ever since
A world painted with rosy and golden tints.

Swirls and more

A lazy, overcast day. Rain falls now and then, stubborn and whimsical. A few more deadlines make a beeline into my ever piling 'to do' list. Of course the procrastinator in me idles. A Thanksgiving dinner menu does its usual rounds inside my head. Scouring the internet for something new, unusual. Distraction knocks. This time it is a lone lavender sprouting up from the pot, framed against a backdrop of resplendent orangish leaves. Despite the frost it still flowers in tiny, fragile bits. And it is almost December doing its annual dance upon our heads. 

Pleased and brightened, I think about something warm and quick for tea. That would keep me glued to John McGahern's Amongst Women. The life of a domineering, embittered Irish Civil War veteran amid his ever fretting daughters and wife. Absent sons, scarred relationships, confused priorities. Absolutely engrossing and dramatic. Suddenly my mind rings like the oven timer - puff pastry! Impatiently thawed, smeared with ground cinnamon and sugar. Rolled and cut up into cutesy swirls. Fifteen minutes in the oven and out they come all cinnamon-y and crunchy. 

As I hunch back to my sluggish self with the book and a hot cuppa, I see the rain climb down the window panes. I know it will be back. 

Of birds and berries

As I try to compose a post, something lighthearted and weekend-y, it snows in little white drops. Like a bunch of mint candies hurled from a confused, careworn sky. Out of habit I gaze dreamily outside my favourite space - a glowing canvas of tall evergreens, ruddy autumnberries and golden big leaf maples framed by the window. I wonder how empty and forlorn a look the place has suddenly worn. One that was bursting with the cackle of thrilled, berry-struck robins just an hour ago. How madly elated they looked, equally rampant and restless in their perch and take off as well. Sitting, picking, nibbling, fluttering, all at the same time. 

I could not understand what was their hurry though. For, if I were one of the fortunate them with a pair of wings and a whole tree laden with the juiciest of treasures, I would have lazed there for days. Drawing manna sip by sip from the plump berries, dancing in between shades of the leaves and boughs, what a life it would be. 

But the mere mortal that I am, I had to resolve to the next and the only best thing - run for the camera. I could only catch hold of these two saintly souls, one contemplating and the other with a clear look of disapproval of the peeking patio-paparazzi. 

Happy weekend, y'all! 

"What is this life, if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare."

~ William Henry Davies, Leisure

Fog again

"Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn..."

~ T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

Strange are the ways of life. With the rain and the unusually winter-like chill, yesterday brought two news. As different as black and white, as contradictory as love and hate. While one friend is all thrilled to fly home for a brother's wedding, another must make the same journey but with a shattered heart from a brother's loss.

There are times when I feel a blank, a strange hollow. And this is one.