Tag Archives: deep blue sky

An October fancy…

01 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by in Reading, Reality

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photodune-5768835-horse-park-ranch-in-the-fall-sWhen I envision autumn, the smell of wood smoke is in the air and I’m walking through orange and red, yellow and magenta leaves piled on forest ground. Overhead mottled green leaves wave at me. Squirrels scurry among scattered acorns, carrying them up tree trunks for storage in their picturesque holes. Inside each one, I’m sure, is a living room suite designed by Arnold Lobel where the squirrel families spend evenings in overstuffed chairs, drinking hazelnut tea and eating walnut bread. (Look inside Lobel’s Owl at Home  http://amzn.to/1M3XIoh if you want to see the squirrels’ decor. They’re always after the owls for decorating tips.)

Those visions of my favorite season were formed by books, from Little Women to A Separate Peace to Winnie the Pooh, and augmented by two years spent living near the Hudson River. The images have little to do with what autumn is like in Colorado. Our high temperature yesterday was eighty-two degrees. Residents are making pilgrimages up the Front Range of the Rockies to see the yellows of the aspen trees, bright against the backdrop of evergreens, but the scenic palette can’t compare with the explosion of colors on the East coast.

While rain is forecast for the weekend, we’re more likely to have sunny days, and here is where Colorado achieves glory. We have the sky. The sheer sweep of crystalline blue, set off by the quaking aspen leaves, fills the soul and dazzles the eye. Every October the Rocky Mountains bare their shoulders of leaves and bask under a blue that extends forever. I’ve searched the Thesaurus, trying to find the perfect word to describe that shade, but none will do. The closest, lord help us? Skyey. Every place has a sky, but in the West, it is more than scenery. It is a character affecting the story, setting the scene, flavoring the air.

And yet I rhapsodize each year over the colors of the leaves in my mind’s eye even as I revel in the vast sea of sky overhead. In the way we see and respond to such things as autumn, how much is owed to the power of words and the impressions they make on our memories? How much has to do with the immediate sensory appreciation we have of our surroundings? Is it fiction versus reality? Perhaps it is the best of both.

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Summertime, and the livin’ is wishful

01 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Random Thoughts

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a reflection of sky is in the quiet river

a reflection of sky by mycola

Wish I were riding an inner tube, straw hat on my head, jug of lemonade attached to the tube with a string. I’d have a book resting on my belly and the water would rock me like a cradle. The sun would go behind a bank of clouds  and the current would turn me toward the weeping willows bending over the river. Would I see an owl peering from a thick old stump? Eyelids heavy, I’d check it out later.

Honeysuckle and flowering elm would perfume the air and my thoughts would thicken like custard. With closed eyes I’d see the deep purple of meditation and hear the droning of bees gathering pollen from the Bouncing Bettys.

Would a fish swish by my foot? I’d wiggle my toes in the cool water and swish it back. A mourning dove would grieve from a tall cottonwood and I’d wonder what secret sorrow moved her to weep.

And then I’d sleep the thick, caramel-rich sleep of a childhood nap. I’d drift through it, serene in the summer day, content to rest and do nothing.

I wish.

Halloween is coming…

25 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by in Ghosts, Hallowe'en, Haunted Denver, Wisdom Court, Writing

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and I’m working on Book Three of the Wisdom Court chronicles, All In Bad Time. At times I get jittery while listening to the creaks and sighs of our old house as I tap away on my keyboard, sitting in my third floor garret. The weather has been summer-hot the last few days, and the deep blue sky heightens the yellows and reds of the autumn leaves. But when the sun goes down, and that’s early these days, the air changes as the shadows venture out from the corners. The bustle of the day gives way to the uneasy quiet of the dark. DCIM100SPORT

Not far away from my garret is a former graveyard. This time of year people again recount the tales of how the bodies were dug out of the cemetery to allow for the park it became. How the contractors grew impatient, not bothering to find all of the remains, moving out headstones but leaving body parts behind. Just a couple of years ago, a sprinkler repair project turned up bones buried beneath the grassy area.

Is it any wonder that some people–those sensitive to the emanations of the past in this old neighborhood–sometimes see things from the corners of their eyes? Feel a chill brush by them as they head home when the light falls behind the mountains?

Alone in my garret, it’s not hard to imagine ghostly figures behind me, intent upon catching the attention of my wandering mind, wanting their stories to be told. I like to think that what I write is the product of only my imaginings, but there’s no way to know whose wispy thoughts break through to shape the narrative. And I see things, too, from the corners of my eyes, sometimes feel a breath of cold air move past my cheek.  And I wonder.

 

 

Everything’s swirling…leaves, opinions, my head…

22 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Metaphors, Random Thoughts, trees

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…And the pace is picking up though we crunch through piles of gold toward the next part of the year.  (Have you ever noticed how much I like ellipses?  And parentheses! Where the hell would we be without them?)

My favorite color scheme is in effect now, yellow leaves bright against the deep blue sky, and black branches offering red and orange tributes to the sun.  Light shines  with force as the days shorten.  Desperation as the season ends?  A few last claims of “But I’m not tired!” before the fractious continent returns to real time?

We continue to batten down the hatches–wrapping the fountain, tucking in the plants, filling cracks against drafts–and the big project, the new roof, will begin before too long.  Wonder what kind of posts I’ll produce with all that activity just above my garret.

I’m looking forward to the peace of snowfall.  The quiet of decisions made.  So many activities abate in the cold, and surely this year the lessening of frenzy will result in new lucidity, to say nothing of rich, lurid plots.  One can hope.

For now I shake my head against the noisy, whirling air and let out a breath.  All will be well.  After winter scours the land spring will come again.