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Turn of the season

Monday night I took the trash out. You might be thinking “ick!” but putting the trash out every week is a sign to me that this new phase of my life is going pretty darn well. Every week the trash goes bye bye. May be not a big thing, but it’s a positive thing and it makes me feel good.

Anyway, it’s late when I go out with the last of it and pull the big can to the road. The moon is almost full and it’s a cold still night. Up and down the road, there are only a few house lights on. I see the shadows the moon’s making through the birch tree. As I turn towards the house, the windows are full of light from inside. I stand a moment looking at the warm glow. There’s that great damp, wet leaf, end of autumn smell, with maybe a hint of wood smoke. You know, I imagine someone down the road saying, just a little fire to take the chill off.

I am glad to know that a warm bed and bunch of cats are waiting for me. I look at the house and think how good it is to have a house and a place to curl up with a bunch of cats. I like the house for many of the same reasons that I liked it almost 20 years ago. Looking up at the windows reminds me somehow of how I felt those first nights in my “new” house.

I go inside.

It’s been a week of savoring the good moments — that wonderful just-warm spoonful of custard. Just out of my oven pizza. Bright maple against fog-muted hills. Old tune played by new artist, with feeling. Geese flying south; juncos flying north. The flavor of a wine from far away. Wood smoke. Cooked squash with butter. The bowl of green and barely red northern spy apples. Hot sweet coffee, cold hands, outdoors. Last mowing. Soon enough, snow. And soon enough, grass again.