skirt weather

 This morning, for the fifth or sixth day in a row, I have reached into the closet and pulled out a skirt to wear, instead of summer's shorts or capris.  Knee-length, if you please, not the short short-like ones that carry me through hot, muggy weather.  Somehow, these late September days, while still oppressive enough to pass for August, are nudging me toward the loose, swingy, back-to-school look stored somewhere in the murkiness of my age-cluttered mind.

I don't believe, of course, that that is the whole story.  Fall might seem like slacks-time, but slacks or jeans feel confining now, closing me up against the possibility of a fall breeze lightening the oppressiveness of 90-degree afternoons.  When others in the north are celebrating yet another dip in their still-warm lakes, I'm intuitively past summer, and on to what autumn should be.  The trees, I must add, are with me on that, shaking down thick crackles like pepper over the rain-starved ground.

Perhaps, too, there is a metaphor to be found in my need for looseness, like swimming free among waves; like lying for hours in a day unobstructed by appointments and tasks, book open in hand; like lunch with a long-time friend which continues into wine hour.  Tonight, at dinner, ruing an overcooked entree prepared in haste, I was chastised (rightly so) by my uncle, "It's that you're too much in a hurry.  I know you have a lot to do.  But you need to slow down."

The fact that the year is closing in (look at the linguistic similarities:  close, closet, clothes, closer) also plays a part...late September always brings that rushed feeling, despite the fact on the other side of the coin that there is still a whole quarter of the year left.  Why the hurry to push time, to grasp all the looseness of never-ending hours while I can?  Isn't December just an arbitrary date on a calendar closing just when the new calendar, usually already in hand, is panting to be opened?

Well, I do have the answer to that...the simplest:  Winter is in the wings, even while most of the shrubs are green, and the annuals still respond to kind, if infrequent, waterings.  If there is ever a season known for closings, it's winter.  Closing up garden, closing up porch, closing up windows and doors, closing up a lot of what frees us spring through fall.  The only thing being opened are the woolens from their storage bags, while we pull clothes close.

I like winter, really I do.  Or maybe I just agree to fall under its spell.  It's a time to hunker down (more dark evenings to read, for one thing) and give the spirit a moment to replenish itself without the need to grow, except at the root.  We pull on sweaters and hide under lap robes; setting out for a brisk walk, we tuck gloves and a scarf in pockets, just in case. Nothing fancy need happen; nothing complicated need preen itself for show.  You can paint small masterpieces; you can knit and sew; you can read and write; you can cook stews and fill the freezer for company that may or may not be coming.  On the rare occasions that it snows here, things shut down even further and you can almost hear the sighs of relief as everyone who can stays home, stays put.  (That's the time to reheat the stew and make some cornbread.) Otherwise, anything you are planning winter-wise is focused on the future when winter is finally past.

It's the time anticipating winter, though, that I like better...the cooler but not chilled weather, the leaves adrift in the air, the sudden urges to spend a morning baking for no occasion at all except to share something warm with others...pumpkin bread for breakfast (if you're looking for GF, try Trader Joe's fantastic mix, which my daughter-in-law turned me on to...and I'm not even a mix baker).  And apple crisp.  By winter, we're so overstuffed with holiday fare that these simple treats which greeted the first chilly days have become old hat.

It's not only I who feel it.  At the library, anticipation of the season has taken on a greater urgency. Summer is a busy time for reading, it's true, with children out of school and families stockpiling vacation reading and elders staying out of the sun.  But last Saturday, exchanging the old week's reads for new page-turners, there was such a crowd among us...in a library as large and spacious and light as ours, it surprised us to feel that half the town had found some excuse to crowd in with us, rushing among the shelves, hurrying to check out, chasing children along the wide inside corridor.  The new coffee shop just opened in the lobby was doing a brisk business, and the paths from parking lots and parks were tread pretty persistently.

I'll admit to having somehow changed my literary tune, too.  Two of the novels I chose were centered around food, or so I thought from the titles:  Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector, and Secrets of the Tsil Cafe, by T.F. Averill.  The first turned out to be a catalog of the lives, romantic mostly, of some early techies, and the second, though it began intriguingly about a boy growing up among cooks, finally disappointed with secrets one guessed too soon.  But I still have the third and fourth to carry me through this week: one about Paris, Ellis Avery's The Last Nude, and a mystery by Louise Penny, whom I gave up on last year, but decided to pull in anyway.  I'd have loved to bring home again The Last Chinese Chef, but it wasn't on the shelf.  Nice safe books, nothing current or adventurous or enthusiastically recommended by the avid and intelligent readers in my correspondence.  Every one redolent of winter's preoccupations.

Today, in a brown skirt with vines of embroidered flowers making the hem, and a fall-green three-quarter-sleeve shirt that sort of goes with it, I'm off to tackle everything from errands to card-making, including a shopping trip with my aunt for her new winter suit.  (At 98, she's decided it's too long since she bought herself anything new).  Meanwhile, I'm hoping that in the workshop this afternoon I can work myself into the right season for our November's show.  That handmade book I've been mentally inventing for months, on Time, ironically, has become more and more a preoccupation, and will soon, I suspect, center the worktable.  I won't be able to hurry that.

If, dear readers, you are scratching your heads, wondering what to make of the puzzling maze this post has become, scratch no more...consider it simply another indication of pushy winter:  woolly rumination.

________________________________________________________

Apple Crisp

6 tart apples, peeled, cored and sliced
a little lemon juice
a little fine sea salt
1-2 tbs honey

Place apples in a deep pie dish.
Sprinkle a little lemon juice on them and a tiny bit of salt.  Mix well.
Drizzle the honey over the apples.

Mix 1.5 - 2 cups oatmeal with
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1 scant tsp ground cloves 
or 
small pieces of candied ginger
 or
.5 (that's 1/2) tsp nutmeg and
1 tbs coconut oil, liquid.
Sprinkle evenly over apples.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.
Enjoy the aroma everywhere in the house; watch the leaves fall.