Mental Vacation

It's been raining for over a week, and mushrooms are growing as fast as the grass. At night the sky breaks open into cavernous rumbles and cracks of light, but the days hang low and heavy. At times like this, I crave sunshine and open skies and the ocean in my ear.

Sailed Ships

Reason tells me the boats that once docked here are now in storage for the winter, but I like to imagine that they have set sail for warmer seas.

Gray Days

Solstice

Greeting the sun.

 

A short-lived daylight.

 

The days begin to lengthen, starting now.

Harvest

Arboreal Days

It has been since Easter that I visited the arboretum. You may remember that then I found it false, a tree museum in the heart of pseudo-urban sprawl that smacked of the Lorax.

The seasons have changed.

The arboretum cannot compare with the remoteness or the cool, peaty air of the farther flung state parks. Here the highway runs adjacent and even in the middle of 1000-plus acres of groves and gardens you can hear traffic. But the arboretum staff and volunteers are on a mission to restore endangered species of trees and prairie grasses, and the results are beautiful. 

 Perhaps it is just that I love fall, and all it takes is to surround myself with its evidence to win me over. Or that I have become more accustomed to this place, and can be happy in its highs. 

This last photo is not very good; the lighting is not quite right. But I wish that I could be as these leaves, aloft on a breeze, lifting my face to the sunlight, furling and unfurling all the day long.

One Thousand Words