Week Nine: Welcome, Autumn

Welcome, Autumn.
This is your week...the first week of Autumn. Yes...one of my favorite times of the year. And we all know I love my “favorites”...probably have a million of them. ;0)

Really, though, Autumn comes in many forms and ideas. It’s a sense of mellow...with vibrance. It’s where dusk meets glow. And here in New Mexico it’s hot air balloons and checking each morning to see if your breath is frosty...followed by warm afternoons. It's chile riestras hanging everywhere and the delicious, earthy scent of chiles roasting. It’s chai tea and scarves and the pumpkin farm and crunching leaves.

This picture was taken during my favorite time of day...my daily Autumn...late afternoon light. Shadows stretch and light pierces the ordinary. Radiance shifts and changes continuously...the sun brushes its rays in lingering swaths across land and sky. Clouds glow and sigh in shades and palettes of purples and blues, of golden oranges and softy pinks.

The following song lyrics detail late afternoon light and an introspection I love at that time of day. Some people say late afternoon is depressing. So much undone. So much done wrong...I argue that late afternoon is the time to lay it all down. Let it go. None of that matters anymore. And late afternoon is the messenger that sings as she runs across the hills: “Tomorrow is another day, fresh and new! Wait for her...”

ANGEL FIRE

I never knew the dusk could seem so sad,
an empty aching in my soul.
In this bright hour I speak your name in the wind,
the shining world outlasts us all.

Even the mountains seem to know you're gone,
the foothills shimmer where they stand.
The sky is still and much too beautiful,
and I am missing you again.

Lift me over the San Gabriels, leaning into the southern sky.
The foothills burning in the afterglow, an angel fire passing by.

I think of songs I might have sung to you,
the love I wanted you to hear.
Every time the blazing sun goes down,
another promise disappears.

I never knew the dusk could break my heart,
so much longing folding in,
I'd give years away to have you here,
to know I can't lose you again.

Lift me over the San Gabriels, leaning into the southern sky.
A flight of angels must be in the wind,
I know they'll pass this way tonight.

Help me remember the San Gabriels, the foothills burning in the light.
Let my heart rise up to where you are, I long to be with you tonight.

I long to be with you tonight, I long to be with you tonight

Sung by: Fernando Ortega
Written by: Elaine Rubenstein

Incidentally, Welcome, Autumn was taken while visiting my friend, S. Snow, in Southern California...where I once lived...where she still lives. And this song is written about the San Gabriel Mountains which run through Los Angeles and San Bernadino counties in Southern California. I first went away to college in Autumn, in the San Bernadino mountains, part of the San Gabriels.

I have seen Strawberry Peak glow with angel fire in the bright hour when the blazing sun sets. I have shivered in the absence of the sun’s warmth and shusshed down hillside toward glowing windows of a college campus where I met some of my best friends in the whole world....where I loved with my whole, unbroken heart...where rooftops still weren’t close enough to reach the stars...but we climbed them anyway...where curls of chimney smoke danced with the stars and brought whispers of holiday celebrations...where going into Blue Jay was a huge excursion and going down the hill was even further...where home felt worlds away...but somehow that place, Twin Peaks, was home in your heart.

Thank you, Autumn, for reminding me of such a wonderful place and such wonderful love and such wonderful friends. And thank you, S. Snow, for always leaving a light on for me. You are one of my Brilliant Lovelies.