Part Two

Hemingway wrote a small poem called "Part Two" in his book A Movable Feast," and tonight reminds me of that poem. I stood on my kitchen deck and looked out upon the early November dusk and wondered where my summer went. I haven't posted on my blog since June, my once a month post taking a hiatus for California, Hawaii, Indiana, Arizona and a little bit of mental craziness. So here it is, November, and I've missed almost all of Autumn in New England.
The trees have all shaken their coats of leaves to the ground, most of which I painstakingly raked up (and I have the poison ivy to prove it).

So Hemingway expresses this expectation of sadness in Autumn that permeates the soul, fixates upon every breath, seems to hold on a little too long and a little too tightly. Every wind whispers through the trees, winter is coming, winter is coming. And tonight as I watched the lava flow of color in the sky, brilliant oranges, pinks and ensuing purples and deep blues, I took a long sip of my wine and thought about pervasive sadness. About the winter and the melancholy it brings for some. There is a tough season for all. There are rough patches that we must learn to weather and not give up quite so easily. Because as Hemingway reminds us, the Spring will come again and the rivers will flow again.

I was inexplicably sad, even though the temperature was especially balmy for a November evening, because somewhere in all the chaos of life, somewhere in all of my lists and my planning, I lost something vital. But I know it will come around again.