Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Like sparkling diamonds


The light of a fall day has a different feel to it. Maybe it's the lower humidity, but everything seems to have greater clarity. The sky appears bluer and the water sparkles as if a million diamonds were strewn on it.

Yesterday, my wife made a pot of chili. It isn't cold here yet. Fall doesn't come to the Lowcountry until November. But it's the feel of something different in the air, as if I'm waiting in anticipation.

The shrubs and trees know the seasons. Leaves are already losing their green and beginning to look worn and darker. The sycamores are the first to change here. Their plate like leaves turn brown before others. The beauty berry bushes are putting on a show with their purple fruit. Acorns are beginning to drop from the oak trees. The last tomato plants have been pulled from the garden and the fall plants are in the ground.

I'm still wearing tee shirts but have worn a pair of blue jeans for the first time all summer. I know that soon enough the flannel shirts will come out. But I will still won't put away the summer clothes until I'm sure that the back of summer is broken.

In the morning, I want to stay in bed burrowed under the light coverlet, smelling the warmth of my love sleeping next to me. But I get up, make coffee, watch the sun come up through the trees, and let the dogs out for a romp. They are bursting with energy, liking the cool mornings.

My walks on the beach are filled with more energy. The tide has been high for the past few days, as it inundates the marsh grass and glistens against the green and gold hues. The fiddler crabs scurry about, but I am sure that they know in their simple way that a change is coming.

Fall is my favorite season. It is a time of nostalgia, a time when I feel myself turning inward, reflecting just as the sunlight sparkles like diamonds on the water.

20 comments:

  1. Well written, evocative post, Syd.

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  2. I love fall, it's my favorite season too. I love to hear about it where you are. It's different than here, but I lived in the south for years at one point in my life. The angle of the sun changes nature's hue. Diamonds indeed. jeNN

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  3. When I was out and about today, I noticed that the soy bean fields are turning more gold than green. I was thinking of the air and atmosphere of autumn and how much I love that season best of all. But here in Nebraska...winter follows so, I quickly snapped out of my reverie and declared that is is still summer and fall is just around the corner. So, here I sit on our deck...barefooted with shorts on.

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  4. fall is my favorite season too, i grew up in california where it was always spring, you never really saw the seasons change there in LA.
    i love to catch the colors in my camera, i love the crispness in the air and it is just inviting the holiday season. great post

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  5. What a good read for this day! I could imagine everything you wrote about, you took me there!

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  6. Cool.

    Where I go to meeting, most of the flannel shirts are worn by females (if you know what I mean). LOL

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  7. The beginnings of Fall have just started where I live. The air is cool and crisp, the temperature just right. The mood of everyone around me has shifted with the season changes. Thanks for your beautiful description, very lovely.

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  8. Wish we had fall here, but it's an extension of summer--and i used to LIVE for summer.

    I felt some changes in the air when I was there nearly two weeks ago. Change--necessary...and good.

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  9. Is it fall in the rest of the country already? I'm just grateful our heatwave has finally broken. We have an 'El Nino" this year, and will get much needed rain this fall and winter. I just love your pictures!

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  10. Coming from the N.E., fall has always been a visual first feeling second time of year. Watching the trees turn, the water's edge come in a bit harder, the horses in their pastures kicking up a bit of friskyness... they are all signs. It's my favorite time of year hands down. It evens hold my favorite holiday, thanksgiving. Only problem with being in the midwest is the seasons change so differently and much quicker twice a year. :( I welcome the cool this year. Not the cold messy, but the cool.

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  11. A well written, thoughtful article - thank you.

    Blessings and aloha...

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  12. Loved the trip through your countryside and musings on early fall. The season's changing here too, in subtle ways. My garden is slowly dying, always a sad time for me. The air has a different feel and scent. I love your blog.
    Chris A

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  13. I love fall also, in Northern Ca
    our seasons are very suttle. Recentley I read that global warming is making the fall and spring seasons shorter. Good to feel change nothing remains the same, this too shall pass. Nice posting thanks again Syd

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  14. Our humidity is going down and that's how I know fall is coming. Well that and the drug store has Halloween stuff out.

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  15. i too love the moody reflectiveness of autumn. the feeling of winding down... lovely post, syd!

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  16. I feel the change too...the colors become different, the air changes...my inner nature begins to want to nest more, to begin to slow down...

    I do still miss the brilliance and crispness of the midwestern autumn with the plethora of hues in the deciduous forests and the crisp crunch as I walk the woods of home, the smell of decaying leaves and the smell of the Big Lake as it cools and begins to turn to winter terms.

    Here in the Lowcountry it seems that we have just as many miraculous sites as the eagles come to nest and the dolphins are in the creeks feeding, the grasses turn, the colors change and the air becomes cooler.

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  17. Thanks for letting me experience the beginnings of fall through your eyes today.

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  18. ahhh, big pots of chili making the house smell of garlic and onions. the best part of the change in seasons.

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  19. Fall is my favorite season, too, Syd. I just don't like what comes after.

    I have tendency to actually make like a bear and want to hibernate. It is harder for me to get out of bed in the mornings. If I could just sleep through most of the winter, that would be good.

    Wish I was in Low Country. I miss it (and the marshes and the ocean) so. Enjoy it for me. I think you do.

    Love, SB.

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  20. Beautiful post, Syd! Fall is my favorite time of the year too... LOVE IT!

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