The Beauty and the Might

I look up from the full table, beyond the long white porch of Lauren's rental cottage, at the changes on the lake.  Before breakfast,

savory crepes: eggs, bacon, spinach, tomato, cheese, salsa

sweet crepes: strawberries, bananas, nutella, home-whipped cream

with four friends while our grad student husbands take Saturday midterms

Cayuga lake was serenely still, but now under a low thick sky southbound white caps rage.  I take my hair down and slip out alone and barefoot to the pepper pebble beach to watch the storm roll in.

A wall of rain creeps toward me down the lake with white boats and birds rushing ahead of it.  I wait in the first September chill for the cool drops to splash my face, taking it all in:

The wind on my eyelids
The sound- the most peaceful kind of loud
The smell- rain and summer
The gray- who know I'd love the gray?  Gray sky, gray beach, driftwood, gray water, even the green slope across the finger lake is veiled by haze.  There's something beautiful about the unity of this uniform neutral natural gray
The power

Awe. Might. Not my might. humbled.  Perfect.

With arms tight crossed in my moistening sweater and bare legs prickling, I dawdle back in to friends and children.

Anticipating Summer's Pending Ending

The crisp clean cold of winter cannot be replicated by an air conditioning unit.  Nor can the toasty warmth and smell of a furnace imitate summer heat.

We have entered that brief window of the year when mornings are gloriously crisp, but afternoons are still warm and sunny.  September.  September is summer's last wish.  September is for cardigans and orchard visits and cider-spicing.  September is when the tree's finger tips turn red and Aunt Tracee's turn blue. 

I recall, in early August, when dried corn stalks and plastic pumpkins appeared in the craft store's seasonal section, I walked up to a scarecrow and demanded to know what he was doing there.  His presence should align with the end of my pregnancy and I was not ready for a baby yet!  I told him to leave, but he did not.  A month later, I am preparing to greet fall and my son.  In fact, I am eager for both.  And no longer am I eager for my son's birth merely for my poor body's sake.  I am really looking forward to meeting him!

A friend crocheted an adorable pumpkin cap for him this fall- orange with a green stem on top.  I'll wear my orange blouse and green cardigan to compliment his hat.

It's snowing white petals in the streets of Manhattan

I rode the Fung Wah bus into Chinatown and stayed with Brian Stout in his "cozy little money-sucking fire hazard" (Manhattan Apt.). Every tree-lined sidewalk in the city was bursting with bright white. Whenever a wind blew, tiny petals fell into my hair and fallen petals swirled upward into my skirt. Chris' ship pulled into port there a few days later. After the conclusion of my house hunting ventures, we decided to enjoy the spring time. :) So, in a motley group of 7 random people, we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden- a pocket of pink and white and multitudinous shades of green in the middle of New York. Oh wow- I have never seen so many blossoms at once. From a distance, the Cherry Blossoms look like cotton candy trees, but close up they look like tiny explosions of fine silk. The petals are so many and so delicate and the flowers look so fragile. We wondered around the promenade a while then admired the magnolias and daffodils and tulips and banzai trees (those are the weirdest things I've ever seen).

One of the seven random people knew another random person who knew of a hole in the wall mexican eatery nearby. The one-red walled-room restaurant was tiny and created quite the atmosphere. The menu was quite different from any texmex menu I've ever seen. Ex: I had a pork and pineapple taco. We talked and talked then migrated to the Brooklyn Museum, where many sunned themselves on the steps while Chris and I scoped the exhibit. A dog was quite entertained by the pattern fountain and all the sunners were very entertained by the entertained dog. His mission was to catch the water spouts before they spouted. He ran back and forth attacking H2O. haha!

The date ended and the group dispersed sending Chris, Brian, and I to Union Square Park to see art sales. So far, I like New York.

Dormant Sugar Maples to Vivacious Palm Trees

Chris and I fell asleep to the Christmas-tree-topper Chrysler building standing outside Brian's window at 37th and Lexington.  I have labeled his 80 yr. old flat a "cozy little money-sucking fire hazard."  He agreed.  I like it. 

We had spent our evening in New York carrying pumpkin spiced lattes through Times Square and Grand Central Station.  I got to wear my pretty coat, so I bounced instead of walking and twirled instead of standing.  (and they say boys never grow up- ha!)  Did you know that Grand Central Station was built by the Vanderbilts? Yep. Interesting fact: the ceiling is a painting of the night sky and the constellations are all reversed because they traced them from a projector!

The next day, I caught a glimpse of the U.S. Capitol while crossing the Potomac River.  Soon after that, we saw the original capitol of the first American Colony in Jamestown, VA.  And Pocahontas told me to tell you hi.  Okay she didn't really.  Anyway, that night, we cozied into the Dyken's house for dinner and video games then woke up to pumpkin pancakes!  Mrs. Dykens is so sweet.  : ) We drove 10 hours straight and made it here (Jacksonville, FL) by midnight. 

We went from one of I-95s nothernmost cities to one of it's southernmost cities.  I felt like we were chasing fall southward.  The trees went from gray to orange to yellow to what is this color again?  Oh Green.  Yes, we ran out of fall around Savannah and now here we are in Jacksonville, where the hibernating Sugar Maples have transformed into vivacious Palm trees.  And my attire has gone from pea coat to bermuda shorts.  We are here for the month.  I hope I don't miss the first snow and I hope I do get to go to Disney World. 

morning walk

I decided to walk to the coffee shop this morning. I crossed the Memorial bridge at low tide. 8:15am. The white fog was still lingering over the water. I had never seen the harbor so still. I was wearing blue and white so I felt like I blended in well. As I walked, I watched a small, lopsided lobster boat creep from her barnacle laden dock. She cut through the white fog and the fog-smothered glass (water) as well as the sleepy patch of bobbing seagulls, who rose and fell in the air like bars on my radio screen at the climax of an Edvard Grieg composition. The gulls fell back bickering to the water and resumed bobbing in the lone trail of wake. The boat half-way faded in the fog, but I watched her stop to drop her first line of lobster cages. Then I walked on.