Fall love

Katie - 091912

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. - George Eliot

I love autumn.  I fall in love with it every year.  I lust for it when the first inklings of its approach become noticeable in August.   I love the colors and light the most.  They make me excited for the winter and the angular sunlight making everything look both dawn and dusk at the same time  I love driving around the countryside a little too fast and watching the leaves swirl behind my car in the invisible air currents.  I love that one of my earliest, and most favorite photo shoots took place in late November, in the hills outside of Berkeley.  Katie was a super trouper leading the way to that magic spot to capture the glorious light. 

Katie - 091912

I wonder where my soul-love for this time of year comes from.  Part of it is the excitement of childhood and going to school with all new crayons, pencils and clothes.  Another part is how beautiful Montana becomes in October.  I should also acknowledge my Scandinavian ancestry a bit.  I think that old blood of living in dark and long shadowed lands courses through me and makes me yearn for those beautiful moments.  Maybe the turning of the leaves and shifting of the light turns me into a different beast much like a full moon does to the werewolf.  Awwoooooo

At times I think I live through spring and summer so I can thrive in fall and winter.  I feel more alive during this time.  I know my own life is shifting from late summer into early fall.  Maybe I am finally aging into my personal time where I feel most at home.  I am not afraid of what my own fall and winter brings.  I know the shadows will grow longer and the light more beautiful until everything becomes a shadow and night consumes me. 

Katie 091912

*Winter Solstice

Moon 122111

**Winter Solstice -
I love the long darkness that is broken by short daylight illuminating a desaturated gray, white, black and muted colors world. 
I love the cold expressions of the earth - steam rising off the water, a dog's breath visible with every pant, the shivers of the people in line for the bus.
I enjoy this day when we are all the same gray beings shuffling about in our gloved lives. 
I see the world and all living things as they are - naked of pretense, color, or spark for at this time we exist to move toward the lighter longer days. 
Tomorrow is when every day will start getting longer and people come back to color, life,  purpose, pretension of what is going to sprout from the sky's warm light. 
Instead, this is the day when all pretension of the earth is stripped bare, we are naked of rich beauty and exposed as the raw, unadorned bones and leafless trees.

Hazy Shade of Winter - Paul Simon

Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say, but if your hope should pass away
It's simply pretend
That you can build them again  

I know the winter solstice was yesterday. I enjoyed its dark beauty.

Overstaying my welcome

Delta Sign - 121411

Back in college our group of friends would take turns hosting parties.  There would usually be a dozen or so of us laughing, dancing, arm wrestling, drinking, eating, toking, making out, joking, and then repeat.  Each party was a treat that lasted for hours and ended when everyone dribbled out.  This exodus usually would last only last ten minutes or so before everyone cleared out.

One night at Scott and Tracy's, four of us remained as we hung out in the living room talking, laughing and getting drunk.  At one point (around two am) there was a lull in the conversation and we could hear the music coming from the stereo.  The song was Contact by Phish.  The relaxing lyrics of the first verse so clearly poured into our ears.

The tires are the things on your car
That make contact with the road
The car is the thing on the road
That takes you back to your abode

We looked at Scott and asked if he was trying to give us a hint.  He laughed and shrugged.  We all then laughed and decided it was time to walk home.  That song became a running joke that we would all play at parties as the exit tune.  It was a funny way to give the soft message, "Time to move along."

We moved to California in 1997 and have lived in Vallejo ever since.  That is only fourteen years, but that is four years longer  than I've lived in  any other place in my life.  Vallejo feels like home and I am comfortable here, but I am getting the subtle signs, internal and external, that it is time to move on.  For the past year or so I've felt both pushes and tugs to leave.  These forces are communicating to me that it is time to move along down the road.

Las Vegas Sign - 121411

The pushes are all around me.  They are subtle and I believe exist in both my subconscious and of those around me.  Many of the pushes are probably my sub-conscious creating negative narratives affirming a need of my own.  One example is the feeling at work that it is time to move one.  The job feels old and rusting.  My performance is getting worn out and I am running out of enthusiasm for it.  I wouldn't be shocked if my coworkers feel the same about me. 

While I may be manufacturing many of the pushes in my mind, I've noticed real ones too.  I've burned a few bridges over the years.  One really bad and recent one is indirectly sending me push messages.  Through very indirect communication (some subtle, some public), the sender is giving signals that my presence and welcome are worn out.  The sender is done with me and it is time for me to fade away.  I earned that push so I am trying to fade out as quietly as possible.

Helping the push are the tugs pulling me into new areas.  The tugs come from going to New York, Las Vegas, Rome, and my other wanderings and travels.  During those times away I felt tugs to move to the new area and a growing regret when I got back to the Bay Area.  These tugs made me realize that a new home awaits me elsewhere.  These tempting tugs beckon me with promises of a  home where I am welcomed, wanted, and where I can bring fresh blood, no burned bridges, new perspective, experience, passion art, humor, and energy.  These places are not tired of or annoyed with Karl yet nor feel the need to push me out.  I haven't disappointed, failed, hurt, or broken hearts in those places.  I am sure though one day I will.  It seems everyplace I go I overstay my welcome.

Phish - Contact

Ides of August Light

Reeds - 081811

The ides of August light turn subtly smokey and yellow crimson.
These first signs of the coming solstice are still warm
yet the darkness of the coming decline into long nights
brings thoughts of my own path down the hill
I will never go up again.

The brilliant moon rises too, marking time
to reap what I sow, to harvest
my bounty
my sins
my pleasures
my toils
my burdens
my rutted field
and place the harvest away for the coming solstice to feed and bleed upon in the dark nights.

The leaves subtly a shade less green, less alive, pushes
thoughts of my own waning lighted candle
growing so soft it has no purpose.

The rustle of the wind in the drying trees
blows through me as well, warm from the hot late summer day
but will grow cold as my heart slows to a nullified quiet, my thoughts fade to grey

and my path ends at an early sunset on a winter's snowy park bench.