September 1: Happy New Year

Autumn
"Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil paintingĀ and autumn a mosaic of them all"

“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all”

Forget the Gregorian calendar. For as long as I can remember it’s the first of September that heralds the new year on my calendar. The fall harvest ripening into hearty soups and long-simmering stews, festivals for writing and films with premiers of new novels and movies, dahlias in russet and gold, magazines thick with fashions for the fall season, the ideal time to travel to so many places, sweaters…

September—the exhilaration of the new school year, as a kid and when I was teaching.

My first class

Remember the Bliss Carmen poem we memorized in school?

There is something in the Autumn that is native to my blood
Touch of manner, hint of mood
And my heart is like a rhyme
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time at the annual Fall fair on Pender Island
Land of Living Skies—Saskatchewan when the air sharply cools in September
Our wedding month
My birthday month, celebrated in Spain last year

…hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined Future

Myra and I with our friend Ruth Ann sandwiched in the middle at Perspectives’ opening party in autumn 1994

Summer
Sighs into fall: …
The light can breathe with
Pleasure…

Clare, Lynn, Ward, Magellan and I on Pender Island on a September long weekend

No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnal face

On the Island of Shikoku in Japan

Autumn harvest dressed in crimson

The Trout Lake Farmers’ Market, where every September I buy a few cases of Milan’s tomatoes from his Stoney Paradise farm

Plumping the cob, kernels of sweetness

Our version of Rocky’s Corn

Autumn quietly deepens—a bridge to mellow thoughts

Mom and I at Rachel’s wedding in Jasper

To soak in the noon sun, and fly
Carefree

Lynn and Clare and I on Pender Island

Let the eye enlarge
with all it beholds

Intense and exquisite, a chroma of apricot ambrosia at El Cellar de can Roca

September, the new year of travel in our golden jubilado years while ā€œbacking into a sunsetā€

Magellan in Barcelona

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower

Gingko flowers
The nostalgia of autumns past

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall

Hiking in the Rockies the crisp air sharpening the Alberta sky to its purist blue

Happy New Year!

Navigation

Update: Langer, Emily. “Linda Pastan, poet of concentrated beauty, dies at 90.” Washington Post, February 1, 2023.

Bloch, Chana: ā€œhours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined Futureā€

Camus, Albert. “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower”

Donne, John. “No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace/As I have seen in one Autumnal face”

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. ā€œLife starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fallā€

Horowitz, Stanley. “Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all”

Orr, David.ā€œSummer/Sighs into fall: …/The light can breathe with/Pleasureā€¦ā€ and ā€œTo soak in the noon sun, and fly/Carefreeā€

Pastan, Linda. ā€œLet the eye enlarge/with all it beholdsā€

Rice, Bruce.ā€œ…backing into a sunsetā€

16 Responses

  1. There is a Gaelic blessing / good will wish that comes to mind with woodsmoke drifting through the spruce trees in ā€œLakelandā€ Saskatchewan, where we are this fall weekend ..It is ā€œLang may your lum reekā€ . it translates roughly ā€œmay you hearth reek of wood and coal smoke and ashes for a long long time (implying that you should live to a ripe old age).. A warming sentiment on a crisp fall day..

  2. Gloria , what a beautiful post , beautiful pictures and fantastic selection of quotes .Thank you so much

    1. Here’s another quote I love from Tim Kreider in The New York Times in August 29, 2015: ā€œI suspect that the way I feel now, at summer’s end, is about how I’ll feel at the end of my life, assuming I have time and mind enough to reflect: bewildered by how unexpectedly everything turned out, regretful about all the things I didn’t get around to, clutching the handful of friends and funny stories I’ve amassed, and wondering where it all went.ā€

  3. You have changed my feelings toward autumn as I am always sad when summer ends. But loved this quote “Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them allā€.

    Thanks for the uplift!

    1. For a proper toast to the New Year, head to The Diamond on Powell Street for a Smoke ā€˜n Mirrors cocktail as we did last week for Magellan’s birthday.

  4. Awesome pictures and many a memory from the ā€œWay back Machineā€

    Fall is indeed upon us, Mother Nature’s palette is exploding into visions only she can provide, a Harvest for the eyes, so to speak.

    ā€œHappy Trails to allā€

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Canaan Peak Grand Staircase
Destinations
Spice

A Lump of Coal for Christmas

If you think of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSE) as a staircase, imagine it now only half as wide—the new “Liddle” Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Read More Ā»