autumn

Ordering our Space

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / Leave a comment

My daughter brought in her treasures from her creme stand today, preparing for winter. The creme stand, passed down from her older sister, is an open-sided playhouse complete with salvaged gems:  a dented wok, a rusting percolator found in a farm dump, a broken food mill, and bottles and jars and containers. Back in the summers when I sold maple syrup, I bought hundreds of dollars worth of bottles every year, and I often acquired special bottles at her request. Bottles in the shape of a smiling sun, a crescent moon, a sugarhouse, a miniature heart. Whatever hasn’t broken has been bequeathed to the second daughter. Following her older sister’s lead, these bottles are filled with colored water, and hence the need to gather before the water freezes in the coming cold.

Likewise, today, I’m gathering tomatoes, pulling spent plants, putting to end-of-season rights what I can. So today, this Sunday at home, my daughter put her things in order, too.

We must bring about a revolution in our way of living our everyday lives, because our happiness, our lives, are within ourselves.

––Thich Nhat Hanh

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Photo by Molly S.

Stillness

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / Leave a comment

The middle of September arrived today, with a reprieve from the prior days’ intimations of winter and dark, the imminent long gray Vermont cool-down of each fall, the lingering death of summer before winter’s glittery beauty. Through the window in the dentist’s office today, the sky shone flawless azure, tantalizing in its loveliness.

“Summer Morning,” by Charles Simic

…I hear a butterfly stirring
Inside a caterpillar,
I hear the dust talking
Of last night’s storm….

And all of a sudden!
In the midst of that quiet,
It seems possible
To live simply on this earth.

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Photo by Molly S.

The Change

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 2 Comments

The children came up with a phrase one nighttime this summer when they were supposed to be tucked into their beds and sleeping like little dears, but were not. The older boy said, The change is coming. We can’t sleep.

I told him to go to sleep, and I went downstairs to talk to his mother.

This illusive change reappeared in various contexts in the coming weeks. Missing chocolate bars and crocs were blamed on this change, a screen pushed out a window, irritable tempers. For all this and more, the change took the blame. But I told you, the boy laughed, I warned you the change came!

The change has arrived here. Walking after dark with the younger girl, she remarked on how quickly the days are ending now, and the sky presses lower, filled with dark. The garden’s growth has entirely dwindled, and our northern piece of this earth is slowly rotating towards cooling. Ever cheery, my younger girl remarked, But this makes the house so much cozier. It’s board game season.

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The voice of the laundry says, Hang me;
hang me, or I will mold.
The voice of the clothesline says,
tighter or I will sag…
While the subliminal shrews are ferociously
eating, always eating, in order to waste away.

–– Ruth Stone

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Work/Photo by Molly S.