Leave the Porch Light On
Hurricane Rachel made her way to our neck of the woods for several days and brought so many beautiful storms, sunrises and sunsets and desperately needed water to the point I finally reminded Dave I could never live full-time in Oregon, Washington or some other endlessly gray, wet location. Of course I could, but I'd get very vocal about needing to be charged by sunshine. You wouldn't like me when I'm sunshine-less.
There was even a tornado that touched down in the Wasatch mountains. Our family group chat was a continual stream of sky photos and weather updates; and our only out-of-towners Wyatt and Megan's family in Florida had nothing but blue skies for days.
A brief break in storms, I hurried and laced up my hiking boots and took a look at things before the trees dropped their colorful leaves. I swear it's the most beautiful, short-lived season of all.
We have yet to have temperatures below freezing and have all our fire-wood stacked "Loaded for Bear!" is what Dave always says his dad Ed says. We also got a storage unit in town to take several bins of things that are full of seasonal and more garage type items. We decided to have an end of the season type of family dinner and invited all the kids and grandkids that were able to come up for dinner last weekend. It was still warm enough outside for some of our crew to eat al fresco.
We took a couple weeks before to repaint just the walls of the main living area (about 300 sq. ft.). I had the notion of going darker/cozier for the Winter/Fall season. The amount of sunshine that comes through the few windows we have is so short-lived anyway I figure we may as well just lean into the moodier feeling of a darker paint color.
Halloween will be here in just a few days. We don't get trick-or-treaters here at the cabin. There will be a neighborhood trunk-or-treat for people with young children to be able to quickly go from car to car; there is snow forecast that evening (it seems to never fail). I'm not inclined to love Halloween especially now that I have no more littles of my own; only biggies that have littles. No more stressing over costume procuring, no more carving of pumpkins and roasting of pumpkin seeds, no more school costume parades, no more rifling through overloaded pillow-cases for my favorite Jr. Mints and Almond Joys and making deals with my kids that I'll let them stay out extra long if they give me a percentage of the proceeds. It's just all sort of weirdly happy and sad at the same time. I'm so relieved to be done with so much of it and so gut-punched that it all went by so very quickly. If I could have just one more moment of seeing their painted faces walk back in the door, breathe in the scent of cold outside that remains in their hair and on their cheeks, their teeth all sorts of colors with sticky sweet candy that I threaten them with getting rid of their loot if there is not some serious tooth scrubbing happening tonight.
My adult children love Halloween. That makes me happy. Mama really hated it so much, and I suppose as much as she tried to make it fun for us kids, I think I was too in tune to her moods and knew she mostly looked forward to it all being over and done with. As a child she dressed up like a gypsy, year after year, the same skirt over and over again. The same skirt she dressed me up in year after year. For some reason I remember feeling so awkward because I wore glasses and it just seemed glasses and gypsies didn't belong together for the proper aesthetic. Who knows. These days I'd likely wear a gypsy skirt and glasses because something about it seems sorta boho/chic and cute.
We went for a hike a few days ago and everything already looks dramatically different. I am waiting for the first snowfall to light the fireplace. Maybe because I know that once I start the first one, we're off the the races with the cold and snow.
It's getting so dark so early I leave the porch light on when we go on our afternoon hikes. This year I'll even leave it on Halloween night; it won't matter, no one will come knocking anyway. I'll have to be sure and purchase an Almond Joy this week so I can eat it while we watch a good scary movie in honor of my Mama who, though she may not have loved Halloween, she loved a good scary black and white movie. I'll let Dave choose between "The Bad Seed" and "Young Frankenstein", cuz I'm a giver that way.
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