10/12/98

I'd really like to write tonight, but my youngest cat Keiko is just thrilled that I'm sitting at the computer, and keeps climbing on top of me to settle in for a nap. This impairs my typing ability considerably. Natasha, on the other hand, deigns to sit only on John. I've got on sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and wooly slippers, all items Keiko loves to wrestle with. Hmm. Maybe this has nothing to do with having been gone for a week and everything to do with the cool weather. It's definitely autumn now. The days are suddenly much shorter, and the scent of burning wood drifts aloft, mingling with the distinctive smell of leafy decay. Puffy-tailed squirrels are frantically trying to bury their winter stash. Unusual birds are making an appearance as they pass through on their way south. Gardeners are busily planting bulbs for next spring. Chrysanthemums in shades of bronze and purple and yellow are being displayed with fat orange pumpkins and bales of hay in many yards. Halloween's just around the corner as anyone can tell by the aisles of candy for sale in every store. It's almost cool enough to start wearing fall clothing, but not quite. We live in too temperate a zone for that, and must make do with transition clothes until the weather turns once more sometime next month. The fog no longer sneaks over the hills every day. Now we get real clouds, and soon we'll get real rain.

I love this time of year. This is when I feel most alive. The hues and scents of autumn cause a great upwelling of emotion and perception. I especially treasure the agreeable melancholy of the season, the sense of being at the nexus of many pathways, some chosen and some accidental, and some open only for a little while. No wonder the ancestors thought this was when the spirits wandered abroad. I fancy I hear a little spook right now howling like a banshee in the other room.

We're out of cat food again. Boo!