Today is the Autumnal Equinox, the first official day of autumn. Since March 21st light has dominated each day, but now we cross into the dark days when night prevails for the next long while. There’s no denying the season has changed and autumn is advancing. The trees are turning quickly. Leaves are falling. The days are cooling. Most mornings we have fog, or frost, or both. Autumn is a glorious season here. But it is a sad glory, a beauty made more beautiful because we know it will be brief. We revel in the colors knowing that many drab days lie ahead of us.
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| The meadow on a frosty, foggy morning. |
These fall days are Brahms days for me. I crave the music of Brahms in the fall. I first discovered Brahms in the autumn of one of my moody teenage years and my mood, the season, and the music melded inseparably in my mind. I was fifteen. It was an October evening. I was in my room listening to WFMT, Chicago’s classical music station, and I heard the First Symphony. I loved it. After that, I ransacked my parents’ record collection and took every Brahms record to my room where I devoured them. I remember sitting in the dark and listening to the gorgeous music – the four symphonies, the two piano concertos, the incomparable violin concerto, over and over again. When I was sixteen, I was taking voice lessons and my teacher invited me to go with her and her husband to hear a performance of Brahms’ German Requiem. Again it was fall and the concert was at the Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago. It was a chilly night. The chapel was amazing in its Gothic splendor. And the music carried me away. Then later, when I was in my early twenties and living in L.A., I went to hear Itzhak Perlman perform the Violin Concerto with the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. It was also in the fall (as much of a fall as L.A. has, anyway). During the performance one of the strings on his violin broke, but he didn’t even hesitate – he just kept on playing, adjusting his fingering to accommodate the broken string. It was amazing. Every year when the days grow cool and the nights grow long, I want Brahms. Last week I made my way through the four symphonies and I listened to the Violin Concerto every day. I will keep on until I’ve heard it all again – and again.
I took a walk last week on Monday. It was a cool, cloudy day and rain was in forecast. Knowing I would be stuck indoors once the rain came, I set off in the morning as soon as the children left for school. I followed my usual path – up the Rapley Road past the fenced pasture, across the fields to the tractor path along the edge of the woods, then through the woods to the other side and down to the road and home again. I hadn’t been to the woods in a long time. They are still mostly green, but changing quickly. The woods were noisy. A flock of blue jays resented my intrusion into their territory and the followed me in the canopy calling and scolding. And there were chipmunks everywhere chirping at me. I came home by Burrell’s place and took pictures of their barn. They had it painted recently and it looks nice. I like old barns.
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| Heading up the Rapley Road on my Monday walk. |
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| Looking back toward home from the edge of the woods. |
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| Coming out of the woods. |
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| Burrell's barn. |
I didn’t get called into school on Friday and I’m glad. It was a perfect day. It was warm and sunny. A soft breeze blew all day. I spent the whole day out in the yard tearing out flower beds. In the afternoon, the missionaries came over and helped Josiah work on the woodpile. They got a lot done. Then we had homemade pizza. It was a great day.
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| Flower beds all cleaned out. |
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| Josiah and the missionaries working on the woodpile. |
I had big plans for Saturday. We were going to dig up the potatoes, pick and husk all the corn, pick apples, and make apple pie filling. It rained all day. I spent the day upstairs painting instead. Stacey managed to pick the apples during a brief lull in the rain. She filled five big buckets from one little tree. At 4:00 in the afternoon we suddenly remembered that we were supposed to pick up grapes from the Amish. Stacey and I drove out to North Bingham in heavy rain and came home with two big flats of concord grapes. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening plucking grapes, canning juice, and making grape jelly. The house smelled wonderful as the grapes cooked. I love that smell.
Today on the way home from church we took the back roads, traveling on the west side of the river from Wellsville to Genesee. The scenery was beautiful with patches of color on the hills and red sumac, purple asters, and goldenrod along the roadsides. The peak of our fall color usually comes in the second week of October, but I think it will come early this year. This is the time of year when every bend in the road, every corner turned, presents some dazzling sight. For the next few weeks I will have my camera with me at all times.
Good Sabbath.
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| The front yard on the fist day of autumn. |
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| The meadow on the first day of autumn. |
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| Pears, almost ripe. |
