When I am alone in my garden in late October I often think about music, especially Ralph Vaughn Williams’ elegiac settings of English folk tunes. My favorite is the haunting “Fantasia on Greensleeves,” because the musical images just seem right for the season of variable weather, early sunsets and mornings when the grass glistens with … Read more
I have always loved the October light, which is so distinctive that novelist John Gardner, who had poetry in his soul, used it in a book title. On any sunny October Saturday, the light is mellow and golden, illuminating the plants in ways that are absent in summer. While it gilds the landscape, the light … Read more
The night temperatures are growing cold enough so that last week I turned the heat on in my house for the first time since spring. The plants have caught a whiff of the oncoming season, but most of them are still going strong. The roses shine, almost literally, in the autumn light, with a color … Read more
I have decided not to be gloomy about mid to late fall. Yes, the leaves are coming down from the sugar maple in my front strip faster than I can get rid of them. Yes, if I think about it, I can envision all of the icy blasts, damaging storms and winter grayness that is … Read more
Everyone in the world seems to be reading Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Its de-cluttering message has almost certainly gladdened the hearts and fattened the inventories of recyclers, thrift shop owners and second hand book dealers from Memphis to Mumbai. I read it over … Read more
