Ninety degrees today in beautiful downtown Burbank where I live with a killer roommate (killer as in capital K Kool versus a bloodthirsty lady; she also hates the letter K being used for a word like kute or krazy so she may cill me) in a house built for little people in the 1920's. (mini-ode to Faulkner finished) My mind is like a tree full of red, yellow and orange leaves as I declare this day officially fall. Now for folks like me who will be spending fall in LA; Thanksgiving and Christmas in Orlando, Florida (playing the mother in A CHRISTMAS STORY for Gramercy Theatre), fall must become a state of mind. I'm a fall kinda girl. All the promise of the holidays with none of the stress or let down they may bring. In my heart, fall is the scene from TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD when Gem and Scout are coming home through the woods after a carnival in which Scout has appeared as a squash (I think). The wind is blowing danger all around them, haunted by racism and the changing south. Ok, fall to me is a crisp late afternoon in Greenville, Mississippi by the fabulous graveyard surrounded by the brick wall and dripping with ghosts disguising themselves as hanging moss from ancient trees. That's what I long for. The mystery, the snap of cool air and an ache in my heart. What is fall to you? By the way, the above painting is by the exquisite Wyatt Waters of Clinton, Mississippi.
4 comments:
Fall in South Texas as well.
fall is watching the liquid amber trees in LA start changing to glorious shades of not green. of feeling the santa ana winds rush into meet every particle of the air in a warm and consumed embrace. of seeing the hunters moon bask everything in brilliance. of the sun warm until the last rays slip behind my house. and the mums bursting up in color and the oranges grow heavy even as some things quietly, here, prepare for sleep. it is something infinite and mysterious that calls to me to clamber out a window and stare into the night or find a windswept street and spin.
As a midwest girl I am seriously missing me some Fall. I long for sweaters, blankets, big bowls of chowder, and different colored leaves. But alas, I have to settle for tank tops, air conditioning, and still worring that my plants won't make it through this heat. Either I'm still not used to this weather after 8 years or I'm just pissy because I'm 8 months pregnant and it's HOT.
P.S. K instead of C is my biggest pet peeve.
P.P.S. Scout was a ham. She fell asleep in her costume while her teacher yelled for her. "Poorrkk!"
Fall is usually introspective for me. Sometimes, kind of lonely. I experienced my first real fall last year when I went to Kentucky to visit Laura, and I sat in the silence and saw the red/gold and the days were long, and i realized that I was tired, and I found rest.
I'll miss that this autumn.
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