Storm Home

Almost all the leaves are gone from the maples today, this image from a week ago. Abscission seems to have come so quickly this year, in a rush to get on with it–toward what end, we cannot know.

Like every winter, this one is supposed to be “a bad one” which, if that means lots of snow, praise be. We need it badly to soak into the water table, to enrich the soil with nitrogen (I heard that was the case but will have to fact check.)

And at the same time, I dread the prospect of ice storms in the dark on a work day, especially for Ann who leaves before first light or returns on isolated black-ice roads a midnight.

But sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, or however that verse goes, meaning don’t borrow trouble as you have enough already in your account to draw from.

And when trouble comes, we have, as Garrison Keillor calls it, our Storm Home.

If any of you are familiar with (or even have) Slow Road Home, the book cover was taken at just this time of year but from about the same distance from the mailbox looking from down the road, exactly opposite of this view.

As I’m writing now, you’ll see me at my cluttered oak desk if you peek into the window just left of the front porch (where golden maple and yellow poplar leaves have swirled into an eddy and found rest on our porch swing.)

This is a morning shot, the floor lamp in the window says I’d been sitting on the loveseat reading just moments before the light lured me outdoors. It was in the low 40s that morning, and it’s amazing how supercooled a metal tripod can become to bare fingers. It all comes back to me as I step into this image–the wonder of an image plus image-ination.