It’s time!

We are at that time in the year when the sun’s balloon just exploded and it pours gold on Earth. Everywhere you look, there is liquid gold plating the trees and the hills. When it dries a little, it turns into shades of red and auburn, and when it dries even more, it becomes dark brown. But every day for a while now, there is more and more new gold poured on nature. It hurts the eyes …
It’s the time of the year when I shiver at the wheel in the crisp mornings and my car just refuses to warm up fast enough for me to be happy! Time for leftover chicken-and-noodle soup for lunch in the park. I love listening to the wind through the golden leaves… It sounds so much more different than the wind in the summer. It’s not the loud, youthful, deep voice you hear in the hot August nights; it’s the hoarse and raspy voice of an old man, about to catch a cold. And the Carolina blue sky hovering over, like a hopelessly immense sheet of pure azure above it all! The feeling of being lost in space, while looking up… of being lost in the deep, and clean, blue and golden space … Of being swallowed …
It’s time for new mulch and one last lawn-cut! Time to buy the apple scented candles and room sprays and crave cinnamon into every pie! Time to stock up on candy corn, grape jelly and apple strudel and bring out the pumpkins! Time to order recipe books filled with favorite holiday grubs and let your mouth just run … like the mountain springs with water ….! Time for cozy, slow Sundays, tucked in with a great book on the rocking chair, or cooking batches of favorite hot and hearty soups, while looking at the joggers in the lane, all dressed up in golden sunlight … chimeras in the street, so lazy …
Time to feel homesick, and call everyone back there to just say “I love you”, and hear “I love you” back…
It’s time to grow older and hopefully wiser. Back home, we say it’s time to count the ducks and the apples; time to count up just how many of those “new year resolutions” have been accomplished and how much of this one more past year was purely chance’s work?!
Time to change the cd’s in the car and include some mellow The Sundays, Harry Connick Jr., Elton John, Norah Jones and Joe Cocker. Time to feel in love, if only just with life or the now! Time to sleep in, cuddled up in the cold early mornings with the warm fur.
And time to dream of … nothing. No more planning yet! For a few months, we too are allowed to be big lazy bears and hibernate. We’ll leave the plans for ugly January. For now, we’ll live in the Paradise of liquid gold, good smells, thoughts of nothing, and the Fall’s “Dolce Far Niente”! And “dolce” it is indeed!

PS: and time to capture the moments in more visual snapshots, too; click here for pictures, or paste in your browser:
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/alinaservici/album/576460762332079901#page1