November weather

November

 "I thought to myself, it's been a while since I have a post from Rachel," Angie told me on the phone yesterday.  

I know...I can feel it without thinking. Sometimes when I am waking, or walking, or peering out the window, a note for a post rings in my mind.  I mean to write it down, but the laptop isn't in my lap that minute, so away it goes, unsung.  (Think of what you've missed...)

This morning, my first glance out to the patio showed a Noah's ark of activity.  After yesterday's hard, fast rains (four inches in Angie's gauge), two of every creature in these parts raced, darted, or flew through the garden.  Some carried pecans from the neighbor's tree to hide here (leaving the shells scattered everywhere, as squirrels do), some drug up worms from the wet ground, some dived at invisible prey, coming up triumphant.  Leaves scattered around their tails and feathers.  I'm sorry I don't have a picture of that.

In ordinary times, the scurry to feed in the fall means a cold winter is on the way.  But since these are not ordinary times, who knows what winter will bring?  In the meantime, we have an autumn that feels like late spring some days, late July some days. 

And not only here. Susan sent me a photo of the last dandelion in her Texas yard, but then added, "today is 80 again, so maybe another seed will sprout."

After she read this post, Michelle wrote:  "...happened upon this sole dandelion on my morning walk!  Astounding for a November in Ontario..."

And then, on a walk through campus yesterday, Alexander spotted one last dandelion here:

Hmm.  Are these stars, popped up here and there, somehow forming a constellation on the ground?  Something for us to read, name, follow?

Barbara's gourds

Aunt Sadie reported that she and Barbara had had lunch the other day on the back deck in Pennsylvania, where 80 registered on their thermometer, too.  Then the next day dawned damp and chill.

Bench with leaves

We here in NC are used to such fluctuations; we have four seasons, true, but often they get confused about which month they are supposed to show up.  We've been in shorts in December and sweatshirts in June.  So far, I have relished every day of this November:  beautiful blue skies, breezy 70s one day; rain and clouds, reaching not quite  60 on another.  On each of my walks, there is always something that brings me to a halt, and, camera out, I try to capture it.  The other day it was red leaves, wet and shiny, springing up from the ground...not whole trees of  them, but one by one or branch by branch; 

 the day before that, white things that survive in a fallen or near-fallen state. 

I hardly think of these outings as exercise anymore, as I did plowing through the humidity of summer. Instead, they seem more an adventure in light, shape, and change.  Which means that I am seeing things with a new eye...the eye of the camera lens, even before I hold it up to see through.   These last years, beginning with my travels abroad, the camera has become another sort of journal for me.  More lately, in this non-travel year, I find myself recording differently...I know...that's a useless word, but I can't come up with exactly what brand of seeing I am doing.  Perhaps like that bench above, seeing the point of the very ordinary?

In November, especially, as the year closes, so seems to my lens, focusing on smaller and smaller things, parts of things...noticed and appreciated, perhaps, in this smaller, slower life.  So different than November of '19, when all I had eyes for were those white hills in Spain.

 After the rain brought in a cold(er) front last night, this morning's chilly walk made me absolutely heady with the fresh clean air, and I found myself on a few extra paths in honor of it.

As the sun hadn't made it up yet (it didn't appear until almost two this afternoon), what I found on those paths were ghosts...leaves that made their mark, before the wind or the groundskeepers blew them away.  They made me remember the bare white birches against the dark rocks gray in New Hampshire...still my favorite November icon.  Now, here, it seemed that the eleventh month had finally decided to be itself.

At the moment the sun is below the trees and I am still in the morning's chilly mood.  The squirrels and birds are back to chasing each other to the best finds.

As you can see, this time I have not forgotten to record my waking note.