Blowin’ in the Wind

It poured (and even thundered!) last night and was still going strong when I got up at 8:00 so I had to scrap my plan to go see leaves. For a moment I saw a spot of sunlight burst through the grey window, but then realized it was only the reflection of the light bulb in my mirror. Still, it gave me an idea: conceivably the sun could push through by the time I got to the mountains.

It didn’t. It was a really nice trip anyway. The panorama looked like rusted cast iron when it was raining but there was the occasional moment of breath-halting luminosity when the clouds thinned. I won’t try to wax all poetic about how pretty the leaves are since good writers have already done that up the wazoo. Instead, I’ll tell you what I was thinking. —”I wonder why the trees do that — get all red and orange and bright, just when they’re about to turn into gloomy bare sticks. Maybe they’re trying to tell us something.”

It’s true: I started pondering what the arboreal among us were thinking. I wasn’t interested in scientific explanations about photosynthesis or whatever makes leaves turn. I wanted meaning that relates to me, and you know why.

Here’s what I believe they were attempting, in their crytpic cryptic [thanks, M] treelike way, to communicate: —”Par-teee! Yeehaw! All dressed up and don’t we just look too cool for school! Take a good gander at us. In just a little while we’re gonna get nekked, and then we’re gonna have to sleep it off. Don’t despair: we’ll be back in the spring.”

I also decided it was no mistake how they arrange themselves, scarlet next to gold next to evergreen, rather than only seas of yellow or red. The way it works is this: at night they all cluster together by color, but as the sun rises they look down at themselves and decide who they want to stand next to that day. —”I think I’d look really pretty next to Joe,” for example. So they race over and plant themselves artistically, returning to the homeplace only when it is full dark.

Today was my brain’s first chunk of time off in over a month. See what happens when I spend too much time in academic thought?

So I drove around for about four or five hours, somehow getting lost and landing on the far side of the Green Mountains rather than driving straight up north along their feet. Up north a ways I crossed back over, and then found a tiny back road that crossed over the foothills.

By the time I finally got to the freeway the wind was blowing so hard that leaves were slicing through the air like missiles, at times so thick it obstructed my view of where I was driving. Pine needles whipped into clusters on the roadbed and then went airborne as one, like tumbleweeds, before shattering against my windshield.

I decided to stop by the Vermont Country Store. It is shamelessly overpriced, though lots of fun to look at. This was in the muddy parking lot:

I stopped at the SIT library on the way home and chatted with Ishmael from Zimbabwe for a while. He told me something that surprised me: that he likes the comments I make in our classes. —”Who, me? Really?” I asked, wheeling around to see if there was someone behind me he could be talking to. Apparently I say things that others won’t or don’t. I guess I do tend to raise the occasional potentially touchy topic. He told me I ask things that he wants to ask.  —”So why don’t you ask?” I wondered. —”I don’t know your culture. I’ve been in this country only a month, so I don’t know what’s acceptable to say. At home we say anything, but I don’t know about here.”

Last night our adult immigrant education class met at the Brattleboro Library to hear a speaker. Afterward, we walked to our teacher’s house for tea and discussion. Natalia (from Russia) and Joseph (from Namibia) were dressed to the nines.

By the time I bumped down my dirt road at 10 pm, it was blanketed with pine needles, almost like snow.