I took the picture above while I was crossing Harvard Yard yesterday. Pretty much captures the look and the mood of the region lately.
It’s 72° on my back porch right now, 9 o’clock at night. It was another warm day here in eastern Massachusetts. While it’s snowing in Minnesota and raining everywhere else on the East Coast, it’s pretty damn nice here.
In fact it’s so warm that I regret having taken the air conditioners out of the windows last week. Could have used them today, especially here in the attic, where I do most of my writing. Instead the windows are open. Outside, crickets and tree frogs sing. For them it’s still summer.
Fall colors are peaking a bit more gradually than usual, thanks to the absence of frost so far this year. Whether or not the globe is warming, things are not cooling off much here.
I love it. Reminds me of North Carolina. Fall happens there too. It just comes later, lasts longer, and lacks a critical mass of maples.
Of course in a month this will all be over for sure. In two months there will be frozen slush on the ground. But for now, it’s mighty sweet.
Bonus sentiments, from the Bard himself:
SONNET 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
And at my age Shakespeare was fifteen years dead already. Which is why I’m with Frost, who had “miles to go before I sleep.” Or George Burns, who explained his longevity in two words: “I’m booked.”
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