I'm not ready for the cold. I step outside on
this frosty fall morning and BRRR!!! I'm just not ready for
this. I loved those two weeks of September with summer-like
days. But summer is gone. Winter is on its way.
I walk down to the dock, wrapped now in
layers of sweaters and jackets to keep the cold at bay. Now I
have to wear toque and mitts just to take a morning stroll.
Summer is gone.
I watch my step as I walk along the slippery,
frosty dock. Then I look up. Mist is rising from the lake. The
warmth of summer is escaping into the autumn air. My gaze rises
higher. The red maple across the little bay blazes though the
shifting fog. Yellows of birch, an array of pale orange leaves
on the aspens. Seven shades of green of the pines, spruces and
cedars. A riot of colour dances in the morning mist.
My gloomy mood disappears with the rising
sun. All around me the world is filled with beauty. October is
here.
A little breeze from the south comes to move
the mist. The island out front appears and disappears in the
white of the rising fog. The hills in the
distance are defined by this morning
moisture, as it dances in the valleys between the trees.
Oh! The colours! The hues deepen with the
shifting morning mist. They reach a peak of richness just
before the sun warms its way through the newly forming
clouds.
I'll never see a red that's redder than the
maples in autumn.
Each leaf has a depth of colour enhanced by
shades of scarlet, brown, auburn, ginger and burgundy.
This morning world of autumn is not yet
silent. A loon calls from the distance, then a pair of loons
appear out of the mist just off shore. Earlier, a great blue
heron split the mist with a quiet whhhh as it glided in to land
at the tip of the island. A single loon chick, now nearly
grown, splashes as it dives.
The southern breeze rises as I type. The sun
brings more warmth. The frost melts on the dock. The mist
slowly disappears. Another glorious autumn day has come.
This symphony of colour seems designed to
compensate us for the cold it brings on its tail. Refreshed by
this overwhelming beauty, I begin to adapt to the cold, to the
end of summer.
Viki Mather lives by a lake near Sudbury.
