Tag: autumn

TGIF: What a beautiful scene, I thought.

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Other than that, there was no noise. Not a breath of wind, no birds flying. Around us pure white snow continued to silently fall. What a beautiful scene, I thought. It moved me, in a way. I was sure every detail would remain in my memory, until the moment came when I took my last breath.

— Haruki Murakami, The City and Its Uncertain Walls. (Trans. Philip Gabriel) (Knopf, November 19, 2024)

Post Inspiration:

2:30 am. Wally is restless, and his tossing and turning had wakened me (again).

I don’t know what pulled me to get up and look out the window. Murakami: “You wordlessly shook your head. But something had happened. I could pick up on it, the delicate sound of wings beating at a decibel beyond a human’s audible range.” And what a surprise it was to see snow.

Murakami’s words didn’t exactly capture my experience this morning with our first snowfall of the season, but it was nonetheless beautiful. The impact of global warming continues to haunt me. I do wonder if our grandchildren will get to experience the beauty of snowfall in winter.

As I rounded the turn on the home stretch of my walk back to the car, the wintry mix turned to heavy rain and the snow was melting as quickly as it had arrived. Murakami: “The days passed, the seasons changed. Yet days and seasons are but temporary things…Human beings are as insubstantial as an exhaled breath, and what they do in their lives is but a moving shadow.”

More photos from this morning’s walk can be found here.

Photo above was taken at 3:12 am. Snow mixed with heavy rain. 32° F, feels like 22° F, wind gusts up to 37 mph. November 22, 2024. Cove Island Park. Stamford, CT.

TGIF: Same morning. 2 takes.

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Cove Island Park this morning. Don’t miss more pictures of the pink sky light show here and my favorite moment here.

I am instantly taken back to those late-fall mornings

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I am instantly taken back to those late-fall mornings when we had to stand glued to others in jam-packed buses, never daring to grab a seat if one ever was free—fall mornings… I’d give anything to experience again the unmistakable snug feeling of bodies swaying to the rhythm of the bus, seeking warmth like penguins huddled together— … people going to work, to school, or looking for work, they were on the bus too, broken and sad, always sad, angry, and scared—of the cold, of life, of your glance when they caught you staring and looked away, their ragged coats smelling of weather-beaten wool that had just been in the rain and whose damp scent I’ve always loved.

— André Aciman, Roman Year: A Memoir (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 22, 2024)

Notes:

  • DK Recommendation? Loved it!
  • Book Reviews
    • NY Times: “Roman Year“: An Exile Revisits the Squalor and Grandeur of 1960s Italy
      • “Aciman evokes the passing of time in rich, meandering prose, rebuilding 1960s Rome in sentences suffused with light and sound and memories — the taste of an artichoke, the smell of bergamot and of Crêpe de Chine perfume. From the bewilderment of arrival, the young Aciman moves through denial toward a gradual acceptance of his new life. “Roman Year” is both an affecting coming-of-age story and a timely, distinctive description of the haunted lives of refugees.”
    • Guardian: Memento Amore

It is strange how the world cocks its ear to that sound, wondering.

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Volume Up!

“Out of the clouds I hear a faint bark, as of a faraway dog. It is strange how the world cocks its ear to that sound, wondering. Soon it is louder: the honk of geese, invisible, but coming on.  The flock emerges from the low clouds, a tattered banner of birds, dipping and rising, blown up and blown down, blown together and blown apart, but advancing, the wind wrestling lovingly with each winnowing wing. When the flock is a blur in the far sky I hear the last honk, sounding taps for summer.  It is warm behind the driftwood now, for the wind has gone with the geese. So would I — if I were the wind.”

 — Aldo Leopold, “A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There” (Oxford University Press, 1949) (via Jules of Nature)

Geese Migration over Holly Pond. October in Connecticut. October 28, 2024. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. Video Credit: Thank you Susan Kanigan

Sunday Morning

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What colour is this blowing autumn wind, that it can stain my body with its touch?

— Izumi Shikibu & Edwin A Cranston, The Izumi Shikibu Diary. (Harvard University Press, 1969)

DK Photo @ 7:30 am. this morning. More photos here: Time Lapse (90 minutes of Twilight to Sunrise in 17 seconds) and Sunrise.