Out my window...

 The wind is shaking the crape myrtles from not one but several directions, though the weather vane seems stuck on S. My windows are open to catch the breeze...cool, not yet past 65 degrees late morning.  Fall is arriving, a bit early for these parts, but most welcome after the humidity and heat I've been plowing through on my walks each day.  On the terrace, wet leaves stick to the chairs, the bricks, clutter the grass, yellow and brown mostly though an occasional red-tinged one enlivens the mix.

Something in the blood responds with a welcome, too.  Soup for dinner, oatmeal for brunch, apples in a pile, weekly replenished as the months go on.  Last week my friend Anne sent me a huge packet of tea including my favorite...Tazo's Wild Sweet Orange...there is a cup next to me as I type.  

The other day Joseph and Alexander drove up with a pumpkin and carved it right in front of the door.  Engineers, both, they first made a careful drawing, deciding on the proper angles for the best scare-factor, and went to work.  Can I bury this seed in your garden, asked Alexander?  And did so...I'll expect a vine curling around the living room window next summer.  Maybe a pumpkin on it?

But this is fall.  There's also the sadness of the change in light...dark til nearly 7 and evening light disappearing only a little after 12 hours later.  My evening walks have gotten fewer, my morning walks later.  My hands work to a different tune, the left one less cooperative.  

Images twenty years old appear in the fitfully moving branches.

This year it will be just us for Rosh HaShanah.  Nonetheless, I'm feeling, this weekend of the new year, like doing a brisket for the men...a recipe from my early married days (maybe one or two substitutions are in order now?) with noodle pudding, braised carrots, and an apple crisp for dessert...hearty stuff whose aroma will fill the apartment with the new season after the lighter fare of summer. (How I will miss Alexandra's spectacular sweets, though.) 

You are invited...

There is a lot more to celebrate...Aunt Sadie's 98th birthday on Sunday; my niece Stephanie's baby shower a week later.  So:  new year, new inspirations, new chances for hope.  

Let Fall raise our spirits and bring us welcome change in the atmosphere.