Tag: fall

mindfulness

november

etikser

No, it’s not about an afternoon walk in the woods, in the cool air, and the falling leaves.

No, it was night-time. I went outside and searched the sky for meteors and the super moon. It was just me, and a few stars behind wispy clouds moving by on a mostly clear sky. I had to look straight up (directly above me) to find the moon. A beautiful round full moon. The moon was still, stationary still, as if it was the backlight, and the clouds and the heavens drifted over and around it.

I listened in the dark to the quiet of a sleeping neighborhood, and overhead, to the wind, and how it stirred rustling leaves on the tall oak trees. I waited and observed, listened and was alert to, signs of any night-time critters that might be moving serendipitously in the brush around me. A fox, a raccoon, some deer? No, no critters. Just the sound of the wind jostling the leaves, and the light of the moon shining above me. A moment in time. A November state of mind.

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

fall, season

just ahead

etikser

Just ahead. Around the bend. September leftovers give up the spirit one night, as quick as one crisp, frosty overnight, and in a breath, a collective surrender to the inevitable passage of time. Jackets, blankets, and cozy nights. Green gives way to seasoned leaves and the October transition bends to its given destination.

nighttime

fall whimsy

etikser

An evening out back, in the dark, to cover plants. Surrounded by whatever’s left of ragged plants that have given their all, and the smell of someone’s fireplace. We’re well into fall, and yet the morning glories have just started producing buds. I respect their determination, their persistence, and feel the obligation to do my part, which is to protect them from cold nights. I looked up from the task at hand, to the dark cover of tall trees, and listened, deliberately, to the quiet.

I listened for crickets, and heard none. None at all. No cricket-style ‘call and response’. Nothing. It could have been winter.

Yet, in the midst of this quiet, I hear the soft pitapat of dried leaves rustling above me. A familiar rustling. A sound tucked away from the past, not from golden leaves and autumn nights, but from ancient trees and winter days. Days at the end of a long, bitter winter, when February winds blow through lofty limbs and the scattering of leaves still hanging on huge weathered pin oaks.

I turned to step back inside, and caught the creak of a single cricket. One lone, strong-willed cricket with something left to say, calling out from somebody else’s yard, somewhere in the distance.

A single tenacious cricket, and October’s wind rustling the leaves. Fall’s whimsy.

2021

maybe you had to be there

etikser

It was the posture of Princess Leia. She stooped and reached toward R2D2. Then she turned the dial and recorded her desperate message. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.

Two young girls, maybe first-graders, stood at the edge of the sidewalk, facing a small wooden fence post. Their heads close together, both leaning in to look closely at something on the fence post. The girls seemed to be on the way to school, and other kids and parents were on the move in the area too, on the sidewalks and streets. I drove slowly, as my timing and the situation warranted, and saw the girls there, on the sidewalk. What were they studying?

I came to a traffic stop near where they huddled. What could be so fascinating?

Ahh, of course. Someone had tacked a placard there. It was a have you seen my kitty flyer, with a big picture of the kitty.

I drove on, and they hadn’t moved at all. I’m not sure they were old enough to read, but they were still stooped and studying that flyer.

~~~~~
Photo’s from a different fence post on a different day.

fall, leaves

time of the season

etikser

The sky was gray, almost white. Dismal and perfect at the same time. The air was cool and chilly, and the birds were noisy, busy doing whatever birds do in the afternoon. Fluttering around in the bushes now, not high in the trees like they were in the summer.

Every bit of my surroundings shouted (very quietly) ‘late November’.