Late fall equals perpetual twilight in Scandinavia.
Our days have lost about ten hours since the summer solstice and this can certainly be perceived.
Yet as always, even the darkness brings moments of absolute enchantment.
If the weather conditions are right, over the course of the next couple of months, I will be once again granted the privilege to watch stunning sunrises as I set out on my daily commute.
Below is a selection of crayola skies - alluring works of art painted by an unseen artist upon dawn, as they passed my windows in recent mornings, dispersing momentarily the feel of everlasting dusk.
Fall is slowly concluding and the fiery glow of the ostentatious season is now only a memory. Instead, the outlines of trees stand naked, dark and ominous against a milky sky, their branches damp and still, resembling almost menacing silhouettes.
The remains of foliage and long gone bloom turns putrefied, instigating a sense of decay.
Late fall melancholy is by now truly apparent. To me it comes across as an intermission, a moment of stillness and tranquility that stands between the flamboyance of colours and the illumination of the Holiday Season.
I have been somewhat absent, in my writing and in my on-line life, for which I apologize. I do still ponder the bigger questions and I do still notice the enchantment around me, I only need more time to convey it in words and pictures to all of you you.
There are continuously issues that occupy my thinking, such as the fact that I find myself increasingly disenchanted with my line of work, a sensation that started a couple of years back and which only grows in intensity by each passing day.
I find this puzzling - that which once defined me and brought me happiness feels now as a burden and has lost its allure all together.
Is it midlife crises, I wonder, or is it I who have changed...
I feel a deep longing to realize old dreams, using my creative abilities, devoting what remains of my working life to an occupation that is novel and better suited the new me.
Curiously, life never works fully on all levels - if it did, I guess we would be done living it.
My reality evolves constantly and for someone who has lived by predictable routines for decades, I find the ongoing growth curiously reassuring. My husband's children are spending increasing amount of time with us, which changes the dynamic of our lives. It is a challenge on all levels, as I am thrown into parenthood of three teenagers, having never hold them in my arms as babies. Trying to be their friend and guardian and yet at the same time guiding them with gentle but firm rules as a stepmother is a balancing act of a novel kind. Yet as I refine my skills, the rewards are of indescribable measures - they are the children I will never have and their love and devotion surpasses all my expectations.
A move to a new house is now slowly becoming reality and soon we will be finally having a home of our very own where we can live as a family, with a sense of privacy and safe continuity. Thus as I look out onto our misty garden, I wonder whether this is the last November noir I am witnessing outside my windows in this old house. So much emotions and changes has undergone between its walls in such a short time. I know I will miss it in a certain way...
Nature is indeed winding down. It is entering a deep sleep, discarding the old and shriveled, renewing itself from within, in order to emerge reborn and revitalized a few months down the road.
This is a contagious rejuvenation, that applies to everything living, us humans too. Most likely when winter turns into spring, my own life will be reborn in a new place.
Late fall is in my perception always defined by one single masterpiece; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21.
Thus when I look into the mist, I can hear piano and strings of violins, giving the melancholy of November a truly poetic, symbolic and almost meditative feel.
Taking a walk along the pristine beaches in the proximity of my home, I am once again reminded of the incredible power of the North Sea.
Watching the surf, the crushing waves bring to mind the run of wild horses, untamed animals in all their feral beauty.
The arctic wind, the salty aerosol, the incredibly enchanting sights of colours and shapes, the roaring sound - they all are the make up of an awe invoking allure of nature.
Yet walking there, hand in hand with a lover, one can not imagine a warmer and safer place...
(All images here taken this week at the North Sea, during our short, romantic getaway.:)
November comes across as a very nostalgic month.
In my native language it carries a poetic name, loosely translated as leaf-fall. Indeed, during the next few weeks, our trees will be robbed of their ornate attire, until they stand bare, instigating a sense of sadness, almost melancholy.
This penultimate month of the year makes me feel as if we are standing between seasons.
Autumn is slowly concluding and the fiery colours are vanishing, being replaced by grey scale and monochrome. The daylight turns into twilight and the dry air becomes cold, damp and misty.
However, as winter closes in, once in a while we wake up to a subtle platinum dawn, revealing frozen landscape - that first preview of what is to come a few weeks down the road.
Continuing my fascination with macro-photography, I tried to immortalize the first frost on our lawn this past week, as it adorned the remains of summer bloom and intensified the contour of fallen foliage.
The views came across as a time-warp, bridging three seasons into a moment of delicate natural beauty, only visible to an early riser, vanishing upon the gentle touch of the fragile morning sun.
