October Table

Three weeks ago, before our leaves in Philadelphia were turning, my friend Emily sent me honest to goodness real maple leaves from Vermont.  She picked them herself, pressed and packed a pile of New England autumn down to the Mid-Atlantic, where the temperatures were in the 70's and our maple leaves were still green and fixed on their branches.

They carried a Vermont chill with them, the feeling of walking amongst the leaves wearing boots and a heavy sweater.

After spreading them out and admiring the colors, I placed them in our wooden salad bowl (made in Vermont, of course), and every morning I come down to the kitchen for breakfast wondering why we forgot to put the salad in the fridge the previous night.

Except we haven't been eating big, green, leafy salads, so I continue to admire my bit of Vermont, pour Vermont maple syrup gifted from another friend on my oatmeal or waffles, and watch golden leaves fall from our own trees now, hearing the dogs crunch them as they run about outdoors and up and down the kitchen door steps. 

Toadstool Village

 

Yesterday, as I left the house with Harry and Charlie for their afternoon walk, we ran into our next door neighbor who commented on our mushroom garden.

I looked over to where she was gesturing and gasped. 

 

Overnight a toadstool village sprang up from the previous day's heavy rain!

 

I felt so grateful because I likely would have missed it in the front corner of our yard.  These mushroom were a perfect subject for a photo prompt on texture.

 

 It was one of those moments of synchronicity where everything fits together and gets delivered to your door. 

Getting Comfortable

 

The self-portrait above was a response to a photo prompt.  

The funny thing is that it wasn't until I spent a considerable amount of time setting the self-timer on my camera placed at the end of the table and running back to my chair and posing, that I realized that I had missed the point entirely.

The context of the prompt was a seasonal one: to include a few details giving clues to autumn.  To make yourself comfortable, say on the couch or in an armchair, with a mug of tea and a bowl of popcorn.  Think about what texture and camera angles can convey...Now, popcorn may not be my quintessential autumnal snack, but no matter, it could be an apple, apple pie, a cider donut.

I seized on the get comfortable part and tried to be natural about it.  I log very little couch time, and never by day.  Occasionally, on a weekend, I grab an hour with a glass of wine and a book if Mr. Savory is cooking dinner.

But up there in that photo is me in my spot at the kitchen table.  I suppose it is where I am most comfortable, not necessarily physically, but creatively.  And while that capture was posed, it looks completely natural and familiar to me.  I habitually sit right there, with my Moleskine, clutching my coffee.

This prompt got me thinking about being comfortable.  Somehow, through culture or being a list-maker, I've taken to equating being comfortable with laziness or relaxation.  What you do in your down time.

But really, they are not the same thing.  Being comfortable can be making sure you are not hot or cold, hungry or thirsty to the point of distraction.  It can mean wearing clothes that make you feel confident or support your activity for the day, not tight or baggy, nor shoes that give you blisters.

It can mean preparing food that nourishes you in the season, and consuming enough but not so much that your stomach hurts.  

I think it's time for me to take a seat in my living room, on the couch or in that armchair we picked up by the curb and had new springs put in.  When it's daylight.  Thirty minutes to read or knit.

 A few years ago, Olivia and I took needlework outings, where we went to our local yarn store and sat upstairs in their comfy seating area.  I brought my knitting and she her needlepoint.  I commented one day to the shop owner how I never knit at home during the day, only on the couch in the evenings.  She understood and said, "I know, that guilty pleasure, right?"

Maybe October is my month to explore getting comfortable.  Tease apart the notion that it means I'm a slouch. I'll be back later, in a new pose, with my camera and a snack.

Golden

 

The leaves are still strongly attached to their branches in our parts.  Little by little, though, if you look carefully, the tops of the trees are turning, and a few leaves scatter the ground.

This could have more to do with the fact that we've had two days of rain this month.  Nearly every day has boasted blue skies and warm, sunny days.

 

I spent the weekend clearing out, changing over closets, ordering boots.  We ate lunches outside on the patio, and I planted the last of the lettuce seeds until spring.  I bought a watermelon and two pints of raspberries at the farmer's market. 

Our pumpkin sits fat and whole on the porch.  Olivia and a friend discussed Halloween costumes while they helped me make brownies.

The Phillies played their last game of the season, and we ate dinner while watching Sunday night football. 

I could stay in this half and half place a long time.  It feels leisurely, a stretching out of time before we're really in the rustling and simmering.  I have time to prepare.

Holding

 

I'm trying to hold onto the last bits of color in our yard.

I am also reaching out for the sunshine that is finally coming our way.  It has been incredibly elusive these past few weeks.

A Deep Fall State of Mind

I've been stranded in transition last week and this, as if I'm on an island and don't know how to get off.  I'm resisting the flip-over, the journey to that next phase of the year, which I dread only next to the brown and grey of January and February.

I am comfortable in the warmth of September and October where much is still happening in the garden, and in the case of this year, it is faring better now than in the height of summer, this past one so dry and hot.  To me September is the natural start of the year when much feels new and exciting.

This week is predicted to be sunny and mild, and I know it will be the last for months to come.  It is the final call for garden chores.  Potted plants need to come in, warmth and shelter must be provided for my fig tree and my beds should be cleared and readied for mulched leaves once we rake.  If I want to create a new bed, it must be measured and laid out with newspaper and compost.

Instead, I go out, perhaps pull up a stalk of something, and say that I can't do more yet.  There are still blossoms, a few greens and parsley sprigs to snip.  Another day slips by.

Nothing seems to make sense for much is neither here nor there.  I find myself always cold or overly dressed. Olivia wears Uggs to school and returns home in soccer shorts, walking around the house barefoot. I am anxious and unfocused, wasting precious time before the onslaught of the holidays. The screen and page have been blank, the oven cold.   

Mr. Savory has put the question out about Thanksgiving.  What do I want to do?  Host or travel, invite or hope to be invited?  I wanly add escape to the options.

The clothing stores are placing their fall merchandise on sale to make room for glittery holiday tops, dresses, and ski sweaters.  They are eager to push out Halloween bite-size chocolate bars and make room for candy canes, creating another shopping opportunity before we have even settled on a Thanksgiving turkey recipe.  My reply is to take refuge in the off-peak periods.  I bask there until I must take action.

For those of us whose lives are not brimming with family, the holidays are riddled with indecision and conflicting emotions.  I long for the the fullness of table and house, where the dominant sounds are laughter and voices calling from one room to another.

Over the weekend, we hiked twice.  I returned both days thinking of nothing but apples and cinnamon.  I have been making soups: minestrone, broccoli, and cauliflower.   Perhaps a dedication to long days in the kitchen could be my way to cope.

I might enjoy a deep fall state of mind if I embrace baked apples with sugar, my favorite pear cake, cranberry and orange, pumpkin and plenty of spice, soup and bread for dinner.  Hours spent outdoors tramping in the woods with the dogs to work up an appetite and desire to come back home and drink tea, followed by hearty red wine.

I imagine playing board games in the living room by the fire, just the three of us or with friends. This room beckons to be finished.  Two fine pieces of furniture have been reupholstered, and my sites are set on finding a new rug and coffee table.  My motivation a year ago was to let Aaron's spirit carry through and make that room comfortable to entertain guests.  He loved people so, and I can hear his laugh at the thought of a room full of a family of friends.  The turning indoors should nudge this project to completion, or at least a presentable work-in-progress.

Color can still be everywhere--in fruits and vegetables cooked slowly, in sweaters and scarves, in a place setting, formal or casual, in store-bought flowers or berry branches clipped in the yard or on someone's farm, in skeins of bright yarn hanging from knitting needles.

If my deep fall can be warmth from soup, the fragrance of spice instead of basil and lavender, sparkly sprinkles on cookies in place of vases of Zinnias, I might come off my island without force. 

Golden

It's still a little green here in Southeastern Pennsylvania, but color is everywhere.  Each day the trees look different than the day before.  My guess is that by next weekend the leaves will have reached their peak.  Election Day usually marks the beginning of our raking.

I took myself on a photo outing this week at the Morris Arboretum, spending time in the wetlands, an area I've never explored before.   The view from the hill, however, is always spectacular.

 

Everything is Changing

Everything is changing, and I don't just mean the season. 

I refer to something subtle that begins internally until it can no longer be held inside.  A certain power, the acquiring of tools.

It started last Winter when encouraged by an online photography course, I left the safety of my kitchen and walked around my neighborhood, photographing.  I was incredibly self-conscious for months to come, but I kept doing it more and more often.

I felt liberated, and I fell in love with the exploration.  I suddenly had another way to tell a story; I had a new tool.

This doesn't mean I'm good at taking pictures, nor does it make me a photographer.  But a new tool to use opens up the world a bit.

I began walking down a new trail, one that did not loop back to my kitchen table.  Like having an affair (I imagine), I was swept away and didn't care about what I was leaving behind.

I was cooking, reading, baking, gardening just as much as ever, however, I had no interest in photographing any of it.  Most of the time I simply forgot.

I stopped reading food blogs as often, and pored over photography and creative personal blogs.  Yet, I kept on reading cookbooks and personal memoirs about food and gardening.

I'm now in the final week of an online blogging course, and I know for certain that I am not the same person I was since the day I first walked around the neighborhood with my camera.

Recently, I gained another tool, or at least a sharpened, pre-existing one.  I now touch a finger to my heart before I start writing a post.  During these weeks, on more than one occasion, I have sat up straighter, asked myself if I am tapping in to what I feel, deleted, and started over with a slightly different tone.

This doesn't mean I write well or even that I am a writer. Expertise takes a lifetime to develop.

I acknowledge, though, that I possess these tools.  I accept that at their most basic level, I know how to use them.  This is confidence I have never admitted to previously.  I have an internal power now, and for the moment, it is keeping me up at night!

I hope to come back with camera in hand to my kitchen table from time to time, but with different intent.

For once one has developed a mission statement, the whole perspective shifts.

Through photographs and stories, I want to share what I see and what I feel.  My aim is for my personal stories to be universal.

Orange

Dear Orange,

Now that your Season is upon us, I feel we ought to have a word or two.  Clear the air so to speak.

You know I love your taste and the feel of your warmth on my skin, but I don't particularly want to wear you or have you adorn my home. 

You represent the harvest and Halloween, and I respect you for that. 

I appreciate your glow in a darkened room, and the burst of brightness you add to a dull block.  You're a showstopper around sunset, and I eagerly seek you out at that hour.

However, like your cousin, red, we will never be really close.  I'm a blue and green girl when it comes to dressing up and making my space comfortable.  Our friendship is a casual one; you have others to rely on for something more intimate.

I do hope you have a glorious season.

With Best Wishes,
Clarice

A Beauty All it's Own

In the decay lies beauty.

I invite you to look for it this week.

from 52 Photos Project 

In my neighborhood a brand new house is practically a fascination.  A newer house might be considered one built about sixty years ago.  Wooded areas and huge old trees give the landscape a rather wild, overgrown look.  This is not a neighborhood of evenly trimmed hedges and vast expanses of lawn.  Our "tree guy" lauds our mossy front yard where we cannot seem to grow much grass beneath the aged sugar maple.

Keeping ahead of the peeling, cracking, rusting, molding, rotting is a routine battle, particularly in the yard where weeds become trees while you take a beach holiday.

The fact that our "ancient" unruliness happens to also be within city limits adds another dimension to what unkempt might look like.

As long as I can admire the withering from afar, I find the possibility for a bit of history or a good story invigorating.  If dead blossoms meant someone had a vibrant garden this season, walking by makes me smile.

I stuck by my commitment to myself last evening to go out for a photo walk despite overcast skies.  I knew precisely where my first stop would be and knowing my subject was decay, I felt a little badly that I knew a good spot to source it.  

Since last Spring, I have walked by this "site" often on photography outings.  The car is always there against that fabulous peeling garage door, and in the Spring pink roses bloom around it.  I tried a few times to capture the effect without satisfaction, or to my frustration people were about, and I was ill at ease pointing my camera at the juxtaposition that may  belong to them.

I enjoyed my walk in search of the fading, however strange that sounds.  Given the losses I have had to reflect upon recently, it cleared my head and balanced me somehow to see that spent blossoms in a garden at this time of year is entirely where things should be.  Amongst them Mums enter and save us from disappointment.  

 The white peeling paint still holds interest in this first week of Autumn, even without the roses. But know that come January, a door in need of paint will match the bleakness everywhere, and I will turn away.  No one will be out then searching for the falling down, as it would feel despairing.  Instead we will be looking for warm colors in our bowls of steaming soup, or for a bright red winter berry poking out from a branch bent with snow.

The Color of Love and Friendship

One October weekday I met someone very dear for lunch. We had never met socially before, our relationship being previously professional.

We met to talk about Aaron, to talk about how we are getting on, and to brave the no-rules ground of growing a friendship.

We had a long lunch, full of sharing, coffee, crepes and a cookie. We talked about her work, Olivia and her transition to fifth grade, winning Charlie, and what missing Aaron is making us think about.

It meant everything to me to hear how much he means to her. It felt good to talk about him to someone who knew him so well, and in a capacity no one else could.

When I returned home after our lunch, I stood in a sunny spot looking out a kitchen window over the garden and trees along the back fence. I stood there a long time wondering how I could creatively represent the gift that was that lunch.

I wanted to bottle it's essence. To be able to take out a drop when I need to feel the love that Aaron created.

As is natural for me, my thoughts turn to food. What could I make that would represent those feelings? I thought of the chocolate chip cookie from the cafe.

Does friendship have a flavor?

Romantic love does, at least most of us associate it with chocolate. I don't think friendship love has any particular flavor. It is probably best represented by what is shared and what memories are created.

What is the color of friendship? What possible colors could I create from? Again, romantic love has come to be associated with red, purple and pink. Valentine colors.

I thought over our lunch, the cafe, what we were wearing. Those colors would have to do. Dark green, burgundy, gold, purple, brown, and because it has to be there, what I now call Aaron's blue.

These also happen to be the colors of Autumn. Immersing myself in these hues has helped me hold on to that day.

If I think about what I brought to that meeting, I understand how the importance of a day or moment heightens awareness of our surroundings.

A few weeks ago, Olivia and I stopped into that cafe for hot chocolate and cookies as a treat after the dentist. It was a dark, rainy afternoon and the cafe was crowded. The opposite of the sunny, sparsely occupied space of that treasured lunchtime. The feel was so different--instead of cozy and worn in a comforting way, the cafe seemed grimy, the florescent lights harsh and blaring, making the space look in desperate need of renovation. Olivia spilled her hot chocolate across the table into my lap, over her homework and my magazine. Grimy turned grimier, and after we had cleaned up, we left.

Olivia said she didn't like it there. I tried to explain how on a sunny day, it's different. It's gold and green and burgundy. There are smiley faces on the cappucino's and the crepes are buttery and filled with things that some grown-ups savor, such a chevre, all soft from the hot batter.

She wasn't convinced. At home I told her I wanted to make a particular chocolate chip cookie recipe that had nuts. I knew she was still working her way through her Halloween candy bowl. I wouldn't make that recipe, though, if she wanted to eat cookies, too.

She said, no, to go ahead and make it. She had her candy to finish up before we started making our Christmas cookies.

These chocolate chip cookies bear no resemblance to the cafe cookies. I don't really prefer the ones they make. They are too soft and too sweet. Yet somehow I needed to make chocolate chip cookies to remember that day.

The shortbread? Well, I was after the color. All Olivia can say about these is "they are amazing!"

I'm glad I went after the gold. Even Michael who likes chewy cookies praised these, eating some on the drive home last Friday night from a performance of The Nutcracker. We had had such a good time that I even offered a surprised Olivia seconds.

Another lunch date with my friend is being discussed, and no doubt from the next one will emerge a color scheme all it's own. The flavor will be a concoction that two deeply connected people, a family and a little boy whip up on a whim that day, full of love for each other.