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.
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.
I am a summer child.
I am born in the midst of the golden season and I worship the white nights, the warm, long days and the richness and suppleness of nature.
However, as I grow older, I find more and more allure in autumn.
I enjoy everything about this versatile season.
The beautiful colour display, which happens with certain precision, yet which can change annually in regards to intensity and duration.
The sense of closure, and the increasing feel of tranquility - the slowed down pace that instigates a sense of rest.
As the air grows cool and damp and the daylight turns into twilight, the effect is a sweet contradiction - an atmosphere of certain gentle sadness and melancholy, which the receding sun leaves behind, yet simultaneously a welcomed and needed sense of rest.
A well deserved winter sleep for nature and for us, as we seek indoors to the warmth of a crackling fire and the company of loved ones, for cosy moments in the shine of candlelight.
Autumn plays a vital role in the yearly seasonal cycle and is deeply alluring in every sense, if we only care to take notice.
As we reach mid-fall, the sun is visibly vanishing, rising later and setting earlier by each passing day. However, the low lying golden disc offers once again stunning views of a dramatic sky, which becomes so apparent during my daily commute. It is a precious farewell gift from nature, like a final wonder, while we are slowly submerged into an early twilight.
Thus I can not help but marvel at the beauty that accompanies me on the road currently. In fact, I am at times touched deeply by these stunning vistas, which come across almost as if being biblical or divine, when the celestial sphere turns into breathtaking painting full of colours and light.
I try to relish in these sights as much as I can, knowing that very soon, for months to come, my drive home will be conducted under a thick blanket of darkness...
“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.” Rabindranath Tagore
It has been more than a month since I last time updated this online diary and it is good to be back. I wanted to return much sooner, but my thinking was preoccupied with the pleasures of life rather than with forming coherent sentences worthwhile writing down.
I am still finding it difficult to do so.
The longing to sit down and submerge myself in self reflective prose is there, but my happy and content reality offers no philosophical contemplations. Embracing this I can always turn my writing into a medley of more creative and descriptive kind, the one that indulges and enjoys - as after all, I want my diary to reflect the true state of my life.
Thus September came and went, as I savored the bliss of sweet reunion with the only man that has ever made me feel complete. Falling
into his embrace a few weeks back was the most single exhilarating
experience I ever recall. Getting reacquainted with my husband took no
time at all - to once again have the privilege and pleasure of each others company is heaven personified for both of us.
Not that we do not have our disagreements and small tiffs.
As two very different individuals with strong convictions we do face conflicts at times, yet our passion for life and for each other and our undying optimism prevents us from arguing for more than minutes at the time. Usually I am the one who flies of her hinges, while my husband is steady and firm as a rock, bringing me back to reality, making me smile and feeling silly, forgetting instantaneously what was it that upset me in the first place.
This is a novel concept for me - in my former relationships, conflicts usually escalated until they were the only constant in my days. It has made me realize that relationship that survive the tides of time and remain loving and harmonious are not the ones that lack conflicts and disagreements, but the ones who posses the skill and talents to overcome them, while turning these into moments of learning and growth.
While I directed my attention to life, reunion, short travels and family, nature continued its yearly cycle unnoticed and fall arrived silently, yet definitely. October is an ornate month and a month of incredible changes and contrasts. It goes
from green to fiery red and golden, from sunshine to twilight, from mild
to cold, from autumn to the early onset of winter. It always comes
across as time span that stands between seasons and it can bring our way
the heat of Indian summer at its onset or the first frost and maybe
even flurries as it concludes.
I
write this bundled up in blankets, in the shine of subtle candle light,
while the twilight envelops the world outside. It is bewildering that
only a month ago the sun was still hours short of setting and the warm
evenings ruled our reality.
As we reach mid-fall, the damp air and the darkness make me long for the warmth and comfort of a crackling fire and in fleeting moments my mind returns to my old white house and its wonderful fireplace.
My life there has by now become my past.
It is amusing to ponder when exactly does something that comes across so real and tangible enter the past tense. Is it after weeks or months, or is it years... Most likely this is decided by the contents of these experiences and the extend with which they affect our reality - and the extend in which we move forward.
Having watched four seasons pass outside our windows, my present is today ruled by a welcomed sense of familiarity and routines, by love and comfort. Yet it is also messy, unpredictable, vibrant and in motion.
My life is at last the adventure I always longed it to be and I enjoy being busy living it.
There is something very melancholic about the end of November. The second half of this penultimate month in a year carries a certain nostalgic feel to it. Particularly here in the cold North, where it is defined by cloudy skies, damp, misty air and a barren landscape.
By now, all the foliage is gone. The golden, copper and fiery red colours are replaced by a multitude shades of grey. As we stand between seasons, our world grows monochrome. It resembles a foggy canvas upon which bare tree branches are painted like dark brush strokes against the twilight sky.
Thus it is time for me to conclude the progressive photography of our lovely birch tree, at least for this season.
It stands now all dormant in our front yard, appearing lifeless, entering its winter sleep. What a difference a span of three months can make - one can not believe that the first and last picture below is indeed taken in the same spot. Gone is the juice green and even the copper hue. The beautiful azure heavens and platinum sunshine. All that remains is a charcoal tree drawn against a transparent anthracite background.
Unless snow will cover its branches a few weeks down the road, I will return with a new update first next year, to take you on the opposite journey through the spring and into early summer, recording the return of the beautiful leaves of our silver birch.
Those of you who have ever been moving know that it comes across like an endless process. Particularly the ultimate phase, when one is almost done and then again not quiet yet and when long days turn into late nights and all that remains is total exhaustion.
I am in that last phase right now and thus I have not been able to visit any of your lovely places, for which I apologize. I hope to do so as soon as my life returns to a somewhat familiar routine, which will be shortly.
The house is though now almost empty. It's rooms echo my footsteps and the music streaming out of the radio, reminding me of the time when I moved in. Serendipitously this was also in the month of November, thus I feel my time there has come full circle.
As I was collecting the last of my potted plants from my back terrace the other day, just when dusk was settling over the neighborhood ending a foggy, drizzly late autumn day, I had to pause for a moment as a feeling of familiarity overcame me. The place came across so barren and deserted, so empty of life, just like it did those eight years ago.
Then I saw it.
A single November Rose blooming in all its splendor on my old rosebush, this late in the year, when everything else in nature seems lifeless.
It came across as a beautiful sign of hope and a sweet fragrant gift which the house bestows upon me as I say my farewells. A miracle of nature confirming the fact that everything in life is truly connected.
(I managed to take these two snapshots with my old Nikon Coolpix, which I had with me, just before it run out of battery.)
This somewhat ominous title is actually a small excerpt from the lyrics to a song made by the band Imagination, called "Hold Me In Your Arms". For those of you who might be interested, there is a clip in the end of this post.
I own their album Closer, purchased as a tape almost twenty five years ago and it is right now on constant reply in my car, keeping me company on my very long drive home each day - after dark.
I love this album and I love this song in particular.
I love it's soulful harmonies and the eighties sound and I enjoy endlessly the memories as they come streaming back, while I recollect my youth to the gentle beats and the so very catching chorus.
Additionally, the mentioned words seem to sum up the period of the year we have just entered in a truly eloquent way.
November, together with December, account for the darkest month here in the cold North. This is the onset of time when twilight rules our days and when indeed, "darkness is our light".
I have mixed feelings about the increasing lack of light. Driving home after the onset of darkness makes for a very unpleasant ride, particularly during heavy rain storms when all I can see through the windshield is a distorted play of lights, resembling a watercolor painting.
Yet the twilight holds also a certain allure, as it instigates a sense of rest. It indicates that everything in nature is now slowly winding down and a period of stillness is ahead. Thus it beckons us to do the same - to retreat to our homes and enjoy the subtle lights of candles and the company of our loved ones.
As I have grown older, I have found novel joy in each season. The darkness of November has truly too its function, if only to reinforce our joy in the month of June, the month of light, balancing out our reality and putting everything into perspective.
(All images in this post are taken on our recent trip across the Danish Islands and in our home.)
As we exit the month of October, the stunning showdown in colours all around us is now so very apparent. This is fall flamboyance in all its glory, when trees, shrubs and bushes grow that beautiful attire of copper, gold and fiery red.
It often comes across as a certain theatrical finale - it is as if nature wants to leave us with the best it has got, enabling us to enjoy and savor its final glow, before it becomes infinitely barren, cold, dark and still.
This autumn beauty is very short and intense in my part of the world. At all times it sneaks upon us suddenly and the changes are powerful and fast. Every day more colours are added to our views and it is an endless joy to watch these grow in tint and intensity.
Indeed October is that ornate month, when nature wears its very best, as was truly obvious on our recent walk. It felt as if we were granted one last performance, before the foliage vanishes from the trees, compliments of the late autumn storms, making leaves gather on the ground like discarded party confetti.
When that time comes, then we will truly know that winter is about to begin.
Our Indian Summer, which dominated the onset of this month, feels today only as a distant memory. Yet, it has contributed to a truly delayed colour showdown.
We are thus in the midst of a very short and a very intense turn, which I believe will last only a week at the best. It has been only days since the foliage began showing in all the earthy colours of red, copper and golden.
Below are some long overdue updates on our lovely birch. It has lost almost half of its lovely coat and whatever still adores the branches is golden. By each day, the strong westerly winds, with a force so very palpable in these parts, rob the tree of more of its leaves.
When I stand looking out of our kitchen window these days, I always have to pause, looking at the long branches as they sway in my view, like the mane on a palomino, while the air gets saturated by falling leaves, gathering on the ground in heaps, like golden coins. At all times these natural changes instigate in me a sense of security, as yet again the third season moves forward, as does the yearly circle of the birch.
