MAYBE A LITTLE SOMBER

SNOW CLOUDS OVER CHEQUAMEGON BAY

THE SOMBER COLORS OF FALL, 2013

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  Wind WNW, calm to light with occasional gusts.  The sky is cloudy with a high overcast.  Decks and roads are wet, and a few errant snow pellets are falling from a leaden sky. The humidity is 77% and the barometer is up significantly, promising fairer weather.  

   Fall is a season of reflection.  The seasons are visual evidence of the progression of life, from the youthful joy of spring through the fulness of summer and the anticipation of harvest time, and then fall, in one last, glorious fling, presages  the  inevitability of winter.  For man or dog,  life itself does indeed mimic the seasons.

   Someone said to me the other day that "fall is bittersweet," and it certainly can be that.  In any case, the season evokes moods like none other.  This fall has been quite beautiful, and of course it is still far from over, but it has had little of the usual riot of color that brings out the Octoberfest in a person.
   This fall the leaf colors have been muted, yellows and bronzes mostly,  and it has often  been cloudy, foggy, rainy, the atmosphere itself closing down the damper on the leafy fires of fall.  And yet it is not a season of sadness, as the earth is too lovely, in whatever dress she wears,  for us to be sad for long.  Maybe a little somber.