Moments of Autumn Grace

Scents of apple and cinnamon fill my house.  The morning was heavy with storms, dark as night.  I savored sounds of rain while it lasted.  Now, not ready to give up a sense of rainwashed, tea-soothed, quilt-warmed coziness, I turn to my favorite music of all time.  

If there were theme music to my life, this would be it.  Why?   I don't exactly know.

I just know that this piece of music somehow finds its way into every corner of my memory.  Into every shadow of my dreams..... 










This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Monthly Round Up 

(apples photo by Nancy Shuman)

what happens next...

The trees are now bare.  We feel like burrowing down into blankets and resting by a fireplace.  After all, the whole earth has fallen asleep.  Nights are long, and one morning we awaken to a covering of white on ground and trees, and on that day even the dingiest parts of a city seem somehow touched with beauty.  We look one night into ice covered branches under moonlight or streetlight and the whole world has gone magic!  The ground sparkles and we think of jewels...

 

(thanks to L Maran for the use of her "Snowy Pumpkin" photo)

fresh bread

I feel a change coming on for these letters.  Not a major one, but maybe a return to the original idea.  I’m feeling drawn away from breadbox “excavations” and more toward FRESH letters, written today.  Written to YOU. 

A bit like fresh baked bread?  One likes to hope so.  Half baked?  Oh, you can count on it.  But maybe that’s part of the adventure of blogging.  I find out what I’m thinking as I write it.  On my other blog (thecloisteredheart.org), I have at least a sense of where things are going.  I like doing that blog, but I enjoy this one too. I like being surprised to find myself talking about nature, and letters, and "four dwarf colds." I would like to write of winter, and autumn, and wind….

Autumn came in fast this year, just as I’d settled in to summer.  I sat outside to enjoy July fireworks and three hours later (slight exaggeration, but it felt that way) there was a sudden freshness in the wind.  Now the air is tinged with woodsmoke, leaves crunch underfoot, and nights are long and deep and brisk.  Candles against a darkened window seem somehow cozy and necessary, and my oldest grandchild checks our supply of hot chocolate.  I don’t know why I’m surprised that the trees are all bare. 

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, with Advent just after.  It's a time for writing cards, and updates, and letters.  It's a time to sit inside (when possible) and write of the season's treasures.  I once heard that writing is a “kind of double living.” During this time of holy anticipation, I would like to doubly live.

(photo © Nancy Shuman)

Noticing

Several of my breadbox treasures speak of what a friend calls the "gift of noticing."  This woman and I are both nature lovers, and we've learned that we don't have to flee to woods or seashore or mountains to find touches of God's amazing handiwork.  A marvel might be right before our eyes, if we only look out a window and notice what is there.  Raindrops shimmering on a leaf.  The coo of a dove nearby.  Crisp autumn leaves blowing across a city sidewalk....

One autumn when I was in a time of sadness, this friend wrote: “You notice the way the sun sets earlier these days and how it reflects nicely on a window at a certain hour.  You and I, we are fortunate to have this gift of observing the constant giving of nature, because in a way it sustains us.  I often think that God gives us nature to observe so as to learn from it.  How things bounce back… how spring always returns after winter, how there is always something beautiful even in the midst of the coldest winter day, like a sparkling icicle, the quiet glimmer of a winter moon, or holly berries covered in snow.  Even in our suffering, it seems that we tend to ‘see’ some beauty in life; it is part of who we are.  It is a great gift.”  

A great gift, indeed.  It is my belief that we all have this gift, a present from our God Who gave us a colorful, ringing, singing world.... and senses with which to notice. I hope to take a moment, today, to notice and be thankful for something God has made.  

Photo  © 2010 N Shuman, all rights reserved