seasons

What I like about the change of seasons is that they come on slowly. You notice small changes. Like one week there is no longer any zucchini in the produce basket. It begins to rain in earnest. They send green tomatoes and some cabbage and carrots show up and potatoes every week. Suddenly you need to find out what to do with two heads of broccoli and not six zucchini. Both go well with parmesan. The basil is gone but the marjoram still thrives. Thyme will last through winter, as will rosemary. I wonder why I haven't used any thyme for months except in tea and remember the cilantro- gone. No more swallows. Juncos appear. Geese circle 'round our neighborhood again. A bush out front turns red and the blueberry bushes turn red and orange and the oak across the street is glorious. Eva asks why I froze all of the berries and I point out they aren't growing anymore. Where did they go? Remember when the bushes were heavy with berries and we grabbed handfuls every time we went out front, every time we went anywhere in the car.

And then all of sudden it is fall. Our oak is bright red. Our maple is bright yellow. Driving down the street is a symphony of color. The next season is here! You are in it, in the process of the season. No longer wondering when fall will be here, remembering what that feels like, what that smells like. How the trees turn red and yellow and orange. But what RED and YELLOW and ORANGE. Nothing is like seeing it now, again, for the first time. The colors dulled in memory. Wondering about whether the rainfall determines the trees' colors like Grandma Spangler said. Knowing you can't double check, ever, if it was yellow in the rain or red. That is the other thing I like about the change of seasons. All of a sudden you are not in between two seasons, hot and cold, green and red, tomatoes and cabbage. You are in one and not the other. And then it starts again. Just when you are in one and not the other, you're moving into the next. No more persimmons. No more pomegranates. Satsumas! But that is for another time. In another month or two. For now, it is fall.