The Tinge in the Leaves

The tinge of color can be seen in the trees.  The  first mini-season of Autumn is upon us.  The chilly breezes are beginning to blow. Our love affair with the warmth of summer is ending. It is a sad parting.

The music of Autumn is melancholy.  It is the season of separation, of leaving, of dying.  The lyrics were written by  Joni Mitchell, and sung (in my head) by Tom Rush:

    "I get the urge for going

      When the meadow grass is turning brown

      Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in."

The song speaks to the loss of separation that comes with the season.   The separation of a friend who is leaving, of the changes in nature, with birds and geese migrating, and the grasses in the meadows dying.  

It is not yet officially Autumn, but the signs of the season are upon.  

The leaves are turning brown.  
Summertime is falling down.  
Winter's closing in.
Winter's closing in.

Walden Pond and Henry David Thoreau

31 October 2010: Early on this cold, gray Sunday morning, I drive out to Walden Pond, to visit the woods when it is quiet. I walk the paths around the pond, where some 165 years ago Henry David Thoreau also came to spend 2 years in the quiet of the woods.

Much has been written about Thoreau. But what touches me most is the idea of living simply and going to the woods for the quiet and peace of nature.

A Brief History of Walden Pond

The glacier: The story begins 15,000 years ago with the retreating Laurentide Glacier sculpting a deep fresh-water pond. Over much of the New England landscape, the glacial retreat carved out ponds and left mounds we now call hills or drumlins.

The transcendentalist: In 1845 this little kettle pond had a visitor. A 28-year old philosopher and graduate of Harvard College arrived in Concord, where his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson owned land on the north and east shores of Walden. Only 1 years earlier in Concord, the Fitchburg Railroad was built from Boston. This line provided transportation that allowed Thoreau to venture from Boston to the woods at Walden.

Life in the Woods: Thoreau proceeded to build a simple cabin near the pond, “squatting” on his friend’s land. His purpose is summarized on a sign near his cabin site. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. And see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”


Below: The site of the cabin is marked by the granite stones
Below: Replica of the cabin (near the parking lot)


Below: Walden Pond as Thoreau would have seen it from his cabin.


Thoreau, a Kindred Spirit

In high school, Henry David Thoreau was one of my favorites. I really loved the idea of living simply, without a lot of clutter and distraction. I enjoyed reading about his days living near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. But, I lived over 200 miles (350 km) away in New York State, so I had no idea of what the pond or woods at Walden looked like.

But I came to know a secluded pond near where I lived. Pine Meadow Lake was deep in the woods away from paved roads, and about a 1/2 hour hike. It was like my little Walden Pond. As a teenager, I was shy, socially awkward. I didn’t not quite fit in, and felt my family did not understand this yearning within. So, like Thoreau, I too went to the woods was where I could think and clear my head. With sunlight glistening off the clear waters and filled with the starry idealism of the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, it was my little oasis.

Living in Massachusetts

I came to Boston for college, in part to get some distance from my family and become my own person. Though I was nearer to Walden, it was years before I visited. (I think the first time might have been skinny dipping in the moonlight while in college – not exactly a spiritual pilgrimage to the sacred ground where my kindred spirit lived.

A bit older now, I’ve been to Walden a number of times to walk around the pond and spend a few moments at the site of the cabin. The reservation at Walden is well-used by swimmers and hikers and fishers. It’s probably, too well used.

So, I came to visit early on this chilly Sunday morning, when the woods are quiet and peaceful. It is the last day of October. The foliage is long past its peak of brilliant hues. The sadness and melancholy of fall becoming winter is setting in. Yet, I came, to spend a few moments, to contemplate living simply, and to share this with my on-line friends.

Feline Thermal Units

Fall is here and the days are shorter and colder. Being staunch New Englanders, we resist turning on the heat until at least Thanksgiving. (New Englanders joke that this gives us something to be thankful for!) Without heat, how to keep warm? Warm sock, sweaters, staying active (e.g., I never feel cold when I’m vacuuming). That’s a few ways.

But our favorite: feline thermal units (or FTUs)! To you, they may look like ordinary house cats. But as warm blooded mammals, they give off a good bit of heat. While heat and air conditioning are often measured in BTUs (British thermal units), we’ve converted from BTUs to FTUs.

Our FTUs come with other nice features: soft fur, a pleasant meow, and deep purrs (they have a 4-stroke motor – after 4 strokes on the head or back, they start a gentle yet strong purr). They also come with 4-on-the-floor, pointed ears, and a sandpaper tongue – all standard equipment.

So, whether watching TV sitting on the couch or sleeping in bed, before we turn on the heat, we take advantage of our FTUs!

Fall in My Favorite Park

Boston's Public Garden is near my office, so I stroll there often. Sometimes at lunch, sometimes walking to the subway at the end of the day. The park is beautiful in all seasons, but the fall foliage paints the park with a particularly stricking palate of colors.

Here's a sampling of my photos of fall in the Public Garden. For more photos, check out my blog Urban Vistas.

Saving My Garden

This year, the killing frost is late. Last year it arrived for El Día de los Muertos (Nov. 2). This year, it was unseasonably warm. But as the week progressed, the temperatures plummeted and some frost was visible yesterday morning. So, even though today is sunny and warm, it was time to save what I can from the garden.

I repotted the geraniums which I keep inside over the winter. I also brought in the parsley, one of the few plants that did well during our short, wet and cool summer.

On the right, that’s most of the cherry tomato harvest below: 9 green tomatoes. There was one ripe tomato we had around Labor Day, and one rotted on the vine before ripening. Oh, well, everyone tells me it was a bad year for tomatoes, and there’s always next year.

Below: my ferocious beast stalking in the wilds of the garden.

El Día de los Muertos

El Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) is tomorrow, November 2nd. It is no surprise that the late autumn is a time to remember the departed. In the northern hemisphere, we witness the temperatures dropping, the sun lower in the sky as the days get shorter, and the death of annual vegetation. Here in New England, this takes the form of a vivid display of bright foliage.

Today (El Día de los Santos, or All Saints Day) was extremely beautiful, unusually warm and even sunny. I took a bike ride to the Mount Auburn Cemetery, one of the most beautifully landscaped cemeteries in the area. It was an appropriate day to take in the beauty of fall while contemplating our mortality.

One of my favorite reflections is found in Psalm 90 where one translation reads: “teach us to number our days that we may learn your wisdom.” Yes our days on earth are numbered, they are finite. But we must embrace our transitory existence and not be afraid of or obsessed with our eventual death. That is the wisdom we must learn, so that we can make the most of our lives.

The Psalm also says “for a thousand years to you……is like the passing of a single day.” This contrasts the eternal nature of God to our brief existence, with an understanding that time can be experienced differently, something that would be embraced in Einstein’s special relativity centauries later. Our lives pass in snippets of time, maybe a century at most. God spans the centuries (“por los siglos de los siglos”).

So, what becomes of us? Do we wither and fade and our life is extinguished, like the annual flowers in my garden with the killing frost? Christianity, Judism, Islam, and other faiths embrace an afterlife in heaven with God. Hinduism professes reincarnation. Others think death is the end. We don’t know the answer.

But while I was there in the cemetery, one thought came to me. I do know what will happen come April. Those same trees now displaying their brilliant foliage, after 4 months where their branches lay bear through winter winds and snowfalls, those very branches will bud forth in a glorious display of spring colors. Hope and life springs eternal.

Does Warm Weather Encourage Smoking?

We have a few nice days this week, with the temperature nearly 70 degrees (about 18 deg. C). So, I was walking around outside. But, in front of every office building were the ubiquitous smokers. With indoors smoking banned, they line up outside doorways, spewing second hand smoke in the midst of passers-by.

So, while I thought it should be an great day to enjoy the fall air, but instead, there was a heavy dose of second hand smoke along every sidewalk.

Now, I grew up during the “tobacco age” where smoking was normative. Adults might choose to “take up” smoking. I recall women declaring “I like a man who smokes!” as though nicotine addiction made a man more macho or handsome. Yuk!! Who wants to live with a man whose breath smells like an ashtray!

In my family, most adults smoked when I was a kid and every family gathering was blanketed in a blue haze of smoke. Amazingly I survived! But instead of “taking up the habit” I was strongly against the idea of smoking. Well, I’m glad the tobacco age is over, the health risks are well-known, and we now know smoking is one of the strongest drug addictions out there.

I’m always amazed at those addicts who persist. There are a couple of “professional smokers” in the building I work in. It seems they are always outside one door or another attending to their addiction, sometimes socializing with fellow addicts. I wonder if they actually do work in their office!

But this week got me wondering: does the good weather encourage smoking? Do the smokers come take additional breaks because it’s pleasant to stand outside? In that case, maybe cold and inclement weather is actually healthier – smokers lighting up less and non-smokers exposed to less second-hand smoke.

A Snow Globe in October?

October in New England. Fall foliage. Brilliant colors. Hillsides and mountains draped in reds, yellows, oranges, and browns. Leaves falling on tree-lined streets.

That's what you normally expect. But whether it's a sign of climate change or just a fluke of the weather, but the scene was quite different yesteday in Massachusetts. It was snowing! And sticking!

The New England Patriots were playing in Foxboro, Massachusetts while the snow was accumulating on the field. It was like the stadium was in a snow globe!

Was I asleep for 2 months and woke up in December? What's with the weather? First we had rain and cool weather in June and the beginning of July. Then we had maybe 6 weeks of summer when we should have had 3 months. Now snow in October? ¿Qué pasa aquí?

A Day Lily Blooms in November

Our little city garden supprised us this week: the day lily bloomed in November!

We've been having this crazy weather this fall. Sometimes cool, but then it warms up. The killing frost that should accompany El Día de los Muertos (Nov. 2) never came.

The last 2 weekends it was in the 60s (15-18 deg. C) and it got one of the day lily plants a bit confused. There was a yellow flower coming out in November!

It should only be blooming during the summer. But this summer was very wet and it only bloomed when we were away in Peru. But this one little bloom in November makes up for it.

The killing frost finally came this week, but the yellow flower remains.

Here's the little flower, hiding in our front planter:

Visitor in my garden

I hate spiders -- them and their yucky webs! They give me the creeps. I like to avoid them and just let them be, hopefully somewhere far from my comings and goings.

Now it's been unusually warm again, in the 60s (15 to 18 deg. C), and I was thinking of taking in my 4-ft. high geranium before the killing frost (if it ever comes). As I was about to reach for the geranium pot, I felt something funny. There was this web connected to my plant and the biggest spider I ever saw in the garden sitting in the middle of her web. Well, I just left her alone.

Later I showed it to Rosie who said “Hmm, not going to catch much at this time of year.” Unless some insects decided to check out the unusually warm weather in November, she’ll go hungry.

Her she is, squatting in my garden!

Today, the web remains, but no garden spider.

My Garden is Dying

Today is known as the Day of the Dead (El día de los muertos in Latin America). Since I started gardening, I have always associated Halloween and the Day of the Dead with the first killing frost here in the northeast.

Being in the city, it comes a few weeks later. But it's now or never to rescue whatever I want to keep indoors over the winter. Soon my inpatients will be withered, the tomato plants brown, and leaves will cover it all until next spring.

Here are some photos of my garden last’s days before the frost and the rescuing of the geraniums and parsley.

For pictures of this garden in bloom, see my post titled "My little garden."

Appreciating Life Better Through Blogging

Blogging on whatever strikes me has intensified my observations and appreciations of the life and events that passes on around me. Life presents opportunities to find beauty and interest in the near-at-hand. (Take this view of a little pond in a new park here in Cambridge.)

Much of the time life becomes a repeated pattern of events: go to work, come home, eat, watch a little TV, pay some bills, keep in touch with friends, etc. Weeks pass as a series of low intensity events while life lives me and not the other way around. We become numb to life -- the intensity can be lost.

When I was younger, there were more spontaneous things I did with friends or places visited, and life had a greater intensity. But now that I'm living in the neighborhood of middle age, this repeated pattern of weekly events lived while trying to keep one's head above water (especially when work is busy) results in a life can become a bit of a rut at times.

But, I've found that blogging is a blessing that gives me an outlet where I can reflect on my feelings of moments and events as they enter my life. Momentary scenes are often filled with an intensity of feelings, thoughts, and connections.

Consider this photo I took: "August Sunset at Longfellow Bridge." This is taken from the train platform of Charles Street station looking west from Boston in to Cambridge. The Red Line subway and roadway cross the Charles River. First thing that moved me was the striking lighting effect created by eclipsing the setting sun with a lightpole, bathing the view in a warm yellow light. And the back-lit cloud over the steam power plant across the river. And the peaceful and empty view with only one young woman standing on the platform, no traffic on the bridge --- all in stark contrast to an otherwise bustling Saturday in Boston. It was Aug. 18th, and I was on my way to see the movie Vicky Christina Barcelona in its first week of release.

(As a transportation engineer, this one photo covers many interests including a unique view of the bridge, the train tracks, the Charles River, and the power plant across the river, one of the few surviving industrial landmarks of a once major manufacturing district built filled tidelands. The platform extension where the photo was taken was built in 1982, as part of a project I worked on).

Here's another favorite "Sunny Lane in Autumn" taken in the midst of Cambridge. On a rare warm October Sunday, with the delicious rays of the sun on my skin (as I yearned for the summer that is now past), I could sabor the respite from cooler days as I strolled comfortably in short sleeves and flip flops all the while taking in the colors of the autumnal arboreal transformation. I had always thought one really needed to get out of the city to see fall in New England. Drive up to New Hampshire and Vermont, take winding country lanes, find an apple stand, and hope it's not raining and cold. But, instead, the beauty of fall comes right to my fair city, if I just go out and appreciate it.

Fall Colors with Uplighting

I always love a garden with up-lighting at night. There's something almost other-worldly and ethereal, yet peaceful about it. And it’s just kinda cool. It’s that white light washing, but not completely obliterating the colors.

So, I came upon this plaza with uplighting on some trees. In any other season, it would be interesting, but at the peak of the fall foliage change, it really caught my eye.

So, I captured them the best I could. These photos almost gets the feel of seeing it with your own eyes.

Then I had some fun altering the lighting and color (it would be cool in a slow disolve video clip).