Greener pastures

Getting into the start of the school year is bittersweet. I know autumn is preparing for her annual visit and summer is looking to move on in a few short weeks. I know we have some time left, and that the warm, sweet days are not done yet, but I do feel a tug of anxiety at letting go of all that green outside.





I spent the last week immersed in it, up it the Green Mountains of Vermont, revelling in the cool breezes up there on the mountainside trails, wandering alone through lush, emerald woods on curving pathways through the ferns.






I spent time gathering up wildflowers by the roadside when traveling, tucking them into a water bottle until I could bring them back to put them by my bed.


I enjoyed an afternoon strolling through the neat lines of vineyard arbors, their branches dressed with new fruit and scores of japanese beetles, who clustered on the leaves engaged in indecent insect acrobatics.


I drew in deep breaths of the fresh wind that danced across Lake Champlain in the bright sun, the blue water dazzling, the blue sky as startling as a happy shout, and I ran my eyes along the Adirondack mountains that line the distant New York coast.


I watched an evening thunderstorm consume the mountain opposite our balcony, rolling in dressed in ominous purple and indigo robes and shutting out the twilight sky;

in the morning, a shroud of heavy grey cloud had been draped gently over the mountainface, and the rain was still falling, softly this time.



All these things I try to fold up and tuck into the corners of my mind like a colorful quilt for when it is cold outside, for when the trees stand naked and the air stings with a frosty snap, and the world is painted in blues and greys.

I plan to take them out and wrap myself in them, a cloak to weather the seasons as they turn, turn, turn.