Things are changing. Splashes of orange and red are peeping through the ubiquitous Vermont greens, and there is a discernable yellowness moving in. The monarch butterflies are sipping nectar from the patch of Joe Pye Weed in the garden and heading down to Mexico. My downy comforter is pulled up to the chin by morning’s light, and the little brown dogs are reluctant to wade across the cold Ompomponoosuc for our morning’s walk.
September is the time to get those chores done—the wood stacked, the furnace cleaned, and the trees that you meant to plant in the spring, planted. Least I start to feel gloomy at the passing of my favorite season, nature, it seems, leaves little gifts laying around— a flock of tufted titmice chasing each other through an old yellow birch tree, while singing their raspy smoker’s songs; two tiny common yellowthroat warblers hanging upside down from the goldenrods, cheep, cheeping as they eat insects; the orange harvest moon peeping through the tall pines like fluorescent paint; an afternoon when our very brushy yard explodes with a mixed foraging flock of warblers, chickadees, nuthatches, catbirds, cedar waxwings, vireos, and goldfinches, everybody eating bugs, seeds, and berries; the lifting off of a pterodactyl (or maybe a great blue heron) from the river; and a final couple of swims with the loons, who will leave soon for larger, saltier bodies of water that do not freeze.
These little gifts leave me feeling surprised and blessed. I’ve been feeling other changes in the air too— outside gatherings and hugs from old friends. It is as if we suffered a terrible famine of aloneness and now, as we grow used to the bad virus lurking around, like the loud uncle who shows up and decides to stay, we are feasting on each other’s company.
Introverts, like me, do well spending creative time alone, looking at the world and wondering why, but the last two years have been too much aloneness, even for us. So now, as the little brown dogs and I go out walking in the company of catbirds and blue jays, I feed my eyes on the New England asters and flat-topped asters and little blue asters and calico asters. At some point in the day, though I will go find a person to be near and to hug.