Category: seasons

november, seasons

moving along

etikser

It’s cold so you need a jacket tonight, and the wind is blustery, leaves rustling, still clinging to branches above me in the trees. The moon’s high, shining bright behind tall oak trees in an otherwise open sky. And we’ve made it, yes, we’ve made it, to an old familiar rite of passage called November.

Turning the page, and making it past transitions. Truth be told, I’m awful at transitions, more okay once I get there. September, October, I didn’t get there yet. I held tight to summer habits, to the bliss and freedoms that probably didn’t even exist in the summer months. When I get to November, I feel like I can switch gears and roll through the next few months, even when it’s not really true. I’m not dismayed by winter. I would definitely miss it if there wasn’t a  good hard winter. Christmas and the holidays are one of my favorite times, and I’m cool with January. It’s almost sure to bring some frozen times and a good snow or two. I wish no one had to work when it snows, but I’m selfishly glad when I am snowed in. I try  to not schedule important appointments in January, and I like a good snowed in feeling. Under the covers with some good winter movies, and nothing else that’s too pressing. Come February, I’m hoping I can coast the rest of the way to spring.

I took this picture on the last day of October, but it looks the same today. So…moving along…yay, November.

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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.

seasons

a little bit of February

etikser

Maybe February is there for these very thoughts. When my physical body is weary, exhausted, and my heart feels heavy…which means, I guess, my eyes feel weighty. Which means what? I feel sad? Sorry? Knowing those deliberate thoughts of encouragement, and visuals of twinkly stars and wintry tall branches, knowing these aren’t enough to re-set my frame of mind.

Maybe perennials need the cold dormant period of winter to find energy for a new spring. Maybe I need February to get through to the other side of my mood.

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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.

seasons, time

transitions

etikser

I’m no good at transitions. A few days after Christmas, people are ready to move on. They throw out the wrapping paper, they recycle the boxes, they take down the tree. January 23rd, and I’m still trying to squeeze in every moment, every song, every note I missed.

That cricket. That damn cricket. The last cricket.

He had to be in the house. Sometimes I walked in the kitchen, and he’d stop, and then seconds later he’d start back up. That cheep was always good for a tug, or a smile, somewhere back in the emotional part of me. It was the sound of something vaguely reassuring. I don’t know, a warm muggy night? You go outside and it seems the whole neighborhood is asleep. Maybe a lazy pause in the dark, on the cement step at the end of the walk. He sounded like the moment you were alone with the trees and the stars and the balmy air and the sounds of the last bits of summer.

It’s one of those microseconds when you look up with hopeless hope that somehow there’s still some summer left. And that’s all it lasts. A microsecond.

That’s what blinks are for.

seasons

summer’s end

etikser

Is it still summer? Yes, technically. But not really. We know it, don’t we?

The bugs are merciless and the cicadas are still noisy. The birds? I haven’t seen it just yet, but the same robins who would almost fight to the death over a strip of land in July, gather like one big happy family in September. A bunch hanging together on the gutter, looking down at another group picking the yard for worms. In my imagination, it’s something like happy hour. The offspring are hunting the lawn, and the grown-ups are up there standing guard, smoking, and telling the summer’s war stories. Bad talking the feral cats. Mocking the hawks. Like … hey, you remember the morning that loudmouth blue jay helped us fight the accipiter hawk? Chased that guy right out of the oaks, almost knocked that napping sap-sucker from its nest in the poplar, and we didn’t let up til our squawking hawk friend crash landed somewhere inside the big sycamore.

Territorial lines are gone now, I guess.

Not the hummingbirds though. They’re still in it to win it. I’ve never seen hummingbirds willing to share. I’m not sure they even share with their loved ones. That nectar must be something worth fighting for.

It happens every year. The catbirds finish nesting there, and the hummingbirds take over. One guy (the defender) claims the feeder and sets up perch inches away. And waits for interlopers. I can see the bird there right now.

Maybe I shouldn’t admit it, but hummingbird competitions are fun to watch. One zooms in from nowhere for a sip of that intoxicating nectar, and the defender guy moves at light warp speed to intercept. Where do they get those reflexes? All that sugar, I guess. And the fight is on. They fly off after each other, at unbelievable speed. You’ve seen hummingbirds, you know what I mean. Synchronized turns. Timing. And angles that defy aerodynamics. Then the original defender guy returns to its perch.

The roses are fading, and the tomatoes are struggling to redden. But there are warm days left, and the hummingbirds have energy in the tank to fight on. One day soon, one day in September, they’ll leave.

And that … that is the end of summer.

[Title from John Prine’s Summer’s End.]