Indian Summer

 

Hello loves.  Come in and have your choice of coffee, tea or cocoa...Or perhaps you'd rather have iced tea or water.  It's been rather warm here but that is due to change this evening.  So perhaps a warming drink before you face a cooler night?

And what about a bit of music as we chat?   I'm listening to Melody Gardot, here.  And then Oblivion (Piazzolla) which will lend a lovely French background music.  If ever I go to Paris I shall be terribly disappointed if there is no one playing an accordion...And no it's not your imagination, it is the same song played by 15 different individuals and groups.   I've loved this song for years, having first heard it on a Secret Garden Cd way back in the late 1990's.  I find, 20 years later that the song is just as lovely as when I first heard it.  It makes my heart sing.

We began the week with a warm sunny dry spell.  According to the almanac, an Indian summer can occur any time from September through November and generally lasts about 3 days.  It can also occur more than once in an autumn.   Indian summers usually follow a spell of frosty nights.   Well we had our frost, evidenced by the lovely brilliant colors on the trees. It was warm enough to revive the zinnias which had plenty of buds when the light frosts came in.  

A tropical depression pulled in the warm dry weather which finally culminated in a day of scattered but hard rain showers and then this afternoon a  little breeze  snapped the flag on the back porch loudly enough to be heard indoors.  That wind sent skittering leaves this way and that and started cooling things down once more.   

I went out this afternoon and harvested some basil seeds for Bess when she was on her way home.  She'd come to harvest some Rosemary, which I have a huge bush of by the back steps.  Apparently where Rosemary grows well the woman is the lead of the household...And where sage grows well, it's the man.  There's a bit of old wives tale for you.  I'd assure you this household is not intentionally run by the woman of the house, but I daresay it is only because I am the most home minded of the two of us.  

Bess and Isaac came indoors and shared in a cup of coffee (Bess) and hot cocoa (Isaac) and the doughnuts John had brought home from the Mennonite bakery.  Isaac had me cut his in half and I suggested he might give half to Josh.  "Ok...I'll eat mine and Jossy's!" he happily told me.  Only he didn't.  I expect Josh did get half.  That's the way those two boys are about each other.  One day they will be the same way with Millie.

Bess and I talked of herbs and succulents and plants in general.  She asked for seeds or divisions of flowers I have here and I do love to share my bounty so said "Yes".   She said as she was going heading across the yard,  "One day I'll have flowers to share with you, and I can't wait!"   I laughed and told her one of the things I love best are passalong flowers. 

I was proud to show her the poinsettia her mother had given me after Christmas, asking if I might keep them alive.   All four plants are now showing their colorful petals.  They aren't in full bloom yet but they are coming along very nicely.  I learned this year that one of the secrets is that in my climate I only need to bring them indoors if it's going below 45F.  It is absolutely necessary that they get 12 hours of darkness daily., which they are absolutely getting by being outdoors!   On the few rare nights I've had to bring them indoors, I've set them in the dining side of the living room which is dark enough at night for any plant requiring long hours of darkness.

After Bess and Isaac left, I walked to the shed to dump the compost and then stopped at the shed flower bed to cut a tiny bouquet of zinnias.  I noted the butterflies were still feeding well on the open flowers and left them some, too.  They need all they may get.  

There were a lot of cosmos but I left all those for the butterflies and bees.  The cosmos do well enough in a bouquet but don't last nearly as long as the zinnias.  I still love the mix of the two flowers in a flower bed.  The few times I've had cosmos in the house I've enjoyed their scent while the zinnias have none.  

I looked at the plants there in that flower bed, which really need to be deadheaded and seeds harvested, and then pulled out.  I looked at the messy flower beds about the back porch and the need to weed once more, but I did not feel perky this afternoon, not in the least, and I shook my head and said "It will wait."  It always does.

I woke not feeling well this morning.  I've no idea why.  I suggested to John it was perhaps too many sessions with the ant poison in hand.  I was only half kidding.  

Despite not feeling perky, I headed out this morning to do some shopping.  I've been thinking of so many things lately, seasonal things coming.   There's a family day looming ahead next week end and guests will be in the house, my oldest son and his three kiddos.   I finally determined what I'd make for food for the family day menu and have knocked out a few ideas of what I might make for meals for the household while visitors are staying here, planning even though I've no idea when they will come in nor leave, a common problem with my eldest.  I usually end up telling him when to arrive and when to leave and if that sounds rude, I don't mean it to be.  He's very open ended  in his planning and I'm only open up to a point for freefall visitors.

I went out today not to buy provender for the house party or the guests but to buy Christmas bag gifts for the grandchildren.  And no we're not having Christmas during this visit.  I just want to be prepared with it all instead of having a last minute and often far more costly dash to the store when our family holiday is looming.  I was rewarded today with a nice selection of items to choose from and in the end, my little bags for the children came in at around $4 each.  I do not have anything for the two babies but I will go out and look for suitable little gifts for them soon.

I have more or less planned what I want my Christmas décor to be this year. I should say really I've planned  how my Christmas tree shall be decorated, at least the color scheme,  and I am hoping I can pull something off for the rest of the house that will go with it.   I always think if I have the idea for the tree and can get that done, I can figure out the house decorations after that.  I had a very specific purpose for choosing the colors I did this year.  I wanted to combine the colors of Chanukah with my Christmas tree.  I won't necessarily do that every year but that's what I'd like to do this year.

I've chosen Blue, Silver and Gold as my color theme.   We'll see if it actually translates as well in fact as I think it will look in imagination.   Naturally I also think it will look nice with my blue and white pieces.  But we shall see.  Sometimes I have one idea and another keeps intruding and then takes over and everything changes.  It's happened when redecorating my house and when I've had ideas for my wardrobe, so I have learned to expect things to change.

While I'm not ready to begin decorating just yet, I did want to be prepared this year, at least in part.  So I purchased a few ornaments to insure I had what I wanted to work with.  And if it doesn't work out then I'll put them away to use another year.  I almost always end up using things at some point.  Or loaning them to Katie when she has a vision of her own, lol.

I had thought I'd make fruitcake again this year.  I need to do two things though.  Number one is to buy new loaf pans.  I just ordered them. They are the Norpro stainless steel.  A few years ago I bought the round and square cake pans and I've been very pleased with them.  They are still as shiny as the day I bought them and the have worked extremely well for me.  

And then I must find fruitcake fruits.  I haven't seen a bit so far this year.   I've made up my mind that when I do find them, I shall just go right ahead and make my cakes whenever I do find them.  I won't have fruitcake for Christmas. I will perhaps have fruitcake for January or February when one's soul feels the need of a small celebration of some sort.  

If I play my cards right I'll have Amaryllis blooms about then, too.  Even though it's my birthday month, I will say sincerely that in February, especially if it's rainy and drear and cold, one could use a whole load of cheer.  

I said I was out today but I didn't share that I took a sort of shortcake (this is one of those too good to fix errors but it was a shortcut) on my return way home.  Honestly it's not much of a shortcake, cutting off only about 3 miles, but it takes me off the busy highway and down winding dirt or gravel roads where there is no traffic at all.  Unless you count the squirrels that cross the road.  Today I saw a big black squirrel.  They are fairly common here in the country and quite large compared to the grey squirrels.  

There's something to be said for a familiar back road.   I know where the moss on ditch banks shines golden in the spring sunlight when it's blooming.  I know where the wild blueberries grow.   I know where there are skeletal home remains tucked into an overgrown spot.  But there are always surprises too.  Like the red flame leaves attached to a tree that I'd never notice in summer because the leaves are smaller and the tree is delicate and hidden by more showy sorts.  Yet here in autumn, that tree just shouts out "Look at me!" and I do!  

And somehow, even if the landscape changes, you can still see a memory of what used to be.  Like how a house no longer stands but as you pass the spot, there it is, even though the house and the large oaks are gone and now there's nothing but a long stretch of pine orchards.  

We lived here once long ago.  The house wasn't on this property but was on the plot of land next to Granny's.  It was an old house with a central hallway and two rooms either side.  It had a breezeway out back and a two room kitchen attached.   The whole house must have been very nice at some point but in my childhood it was a rough sort of house.  

I remember when Mama and Granny cleaned the house, we came back and found on opening the door the floors of the house were covered with bees.  You couldn't put your foot down without stepping on a bee.  Granny went home and got a big jug, put a little honey in it and set it down.  When we came back the bees were gone.  I don't know now if they were in the jug with the honey or not but they were gone.

It was a harsh home to live in, in many ways.  It had no running water or plumbing of any sort.  Mama hauled gallons of water at a time from Granny's.  I don't know how she lifted it, I don't.  And yet I remember her hauling water to run the washing machine, too.  And she did dishes and cooked meals and we had baths of sorts (though there was no bathroom).  I remember standing in a deep enameled dish pan bathing.  

You could see right through the cracks between the wooden walls and floors where the wood boards had shrunk over the years.   The yard had been swept clean so often that not a single stalk of grass would ever push through the dirt.

Mama and Daddy slept in the living room.  There was a Ben Franklin stove to heat that room in autumn and winter and our bedroom which was right off the living room.   There were fireplaces in each room but no one dared start a fire in one of them.   I don't remember how we ate our  meals.  I don't remember a dining room.  I don't remember the kitchen really, except that there was a metal sink cabinet with a white enamel cast iron sink on one wall.  There was one light bulb right in the center  of each room and that light fixture was also the source of the  single plug in the room.  How did Mama cook?  Where did she plug up a stove?  Did she cook with gas?  I have no idea.

I was very young, just six, so many of the things that were difficult weren't mine to take part in or to really notice.   I look back now, and knowing from experience what it's like to live without water courtesy our days post hurricanes, know that it must have been beyond hard.  

The only real concern I had was that  Mama insisted I must empty the chamber pot each afternoon following school.  And she insisted I had to go 'out back' and not down the front steps where a passerby might see that we had a chamber pot to empty!  The difficulty was that the back porch was two and a half feet off the ground and so I had to lift the pot up and over my head in order to get it off the back porch.  There were no steps there.  And then I took it to the outhouse which was tucked in between two big oaks and hidden from the road by vines and hedges.  I spilled it more often than not but Mama was unrelenting in her insistence that I take it out the back way.

Why my parents lived there is a story in itself.  They'd lost a home, and furniture and Daddy's job due to bankruptcy.  Back in the early 60's when you filed for bankruptcy, you didn't just go out and start over with a nearly clean slate the way people do now.  No.  You worked to pay off the old debts.   You lost stature with your community, especially your work community.  We'd lived in a series of rental houses and went through a long spell of unemployment for Daddy as he tried to find a new position.  

Moving to that old dilapidated house was a test to see if Mama could stand living that close to Granny and Granddaddy.  And if they could, they would build a house on this place with Granddaddy's help.   We moved away a year or so later, before I started second grade.  It was four more years before my parents bought their next home.  Back then, you had to wait seven years before you could get a mortgage once more.

Later my uncle would start a house here but in the end it would be sold without him ever living in it.  Was it all my grandfather's fault?  I don't know.  I know that Mama and her brother both had strong personalities and often butted heads with others.   There were other dynamics that are not mine to share but it was a minefield, really.  Knowing what I do now, it's a wonder that they even spoke much less tried to live nearby.

But it's Granny I think of, more than Granddaddy whom I barely knew.    I wonder if Granny dreamed of having her children here and her grandchildren close by?  I suspect she did.  It must have hurt terribly to realize that her dreams would never come true in exactly the way she hoped they might.  I remember how happy she was to have my brother move here.  I remember how pleased she sounded when she told me she could see my rooftop from her porch.   It makes me mindful of how fortunate I am at present to have three grandchildren  right here across the field and one in town to love on just any old time at all and two children nearby.

Well.  Maybe sometimes your dreams live on in someone else and come true in their lives instead?  Is that why perhaps my boys and Katie and Amie have travelled and I've only bumped around the same 50 mile circumference from my birthplace though I've longed to see the world?   I wonder what dreams their own children or grandchildren will achieve that were dearly held by them?  Will one of my grandchildren one day write a book that moves souls?    Or will one write a song or form a band that woos people to sing along every time?  

But I know the other side of that coin, as well.  The side that is dark and hard where struggles and heartaches occur.  Some that are repeats from years past and some that are new to that individual.  Of mental health issues and addictions and sorrows.  One must acknowledge that those things also come into every life.  The mistakes, the errors in judgement, the hurts we cause ourselves and the things over which we have no control at all.  

Yet it all blends into a life.  I remember a particularly harsh time.  Things had swirled out of control over a two year period.   I'd lost a marriage, lost my reputation, too, and a church and friends and so much that it was astonishing I could even think of getting out of bed. Some of those things were the results of poor decisions, some the result of trying to correct a mistake of many years standing, and some were simply things that happened without any seeming rhyme or reason.  It was my turn in the game of life to be knocked down and humbled.  A friend said  what a horrible time I'd had of it and if I could just go back to this moment or that, wouldn't things be different if this or that hadn't happened?  

I'd only realized during that horrible spell how strong I was.  That my reputation wasn't in the hands of others to destroy but was mine to mold and shape and build.  I'd survived a major storm of life and another and another and I was broken but standing despite every blow.  I'd come to like myself at long last. I said to her then, "I wouldn't go back and change a thing.  All of it led to who I am now."   

That was my answer 30 years ago...Would I answer her differently now, at age 60?  

No, I think not.  I think I'd answer exactly the same because the past 30 years, while difficult at times, were full of things I wouldn't change and to change one thing would be to change them all.  I've got John and Katie and Sam and Amie and Jd.  I've got a dozen grandchildren, a lovely daughter in law, a former son in law that I admire and respect and a daughter and son of my heart that I might not have had otherwise.  I've known John's dad and Danny.  I came to live on this land and got to be near Granny and while it mightn't have been the grand family reunion I dreamed it would be, I had so many more years of time with her than I'd have imagined possible.  I came to know Christ.  I had the opportunity to make peace with Daddy, a journey that continues even  to this day as I peel back  the layers of memories and gain understanding and forgiveness.   I've been able to be a real homemaker, full time.  I've had an opportunity to share my simple life with others who find some solace in my day to day doings.    I have a home I love. I've had the opportunity to confront my demons and lay a few of them to rest.  I didn't travel far in miles, but I travelled far and wide in my emotions and experiences and in my spiritual life.

No, I wouldn't change a thing.  I'll take my Indian Summer in my autumn era of life and appreciate it for what it is, a welcome reminder that summer will always come again.