Now is the winter of our discontent, made vainglorious autumn by this son of a trump. (My apologies to William Shakespeare, and to Richard III, a more important historical archetype than Donald I.)
Autumn is here, and I have ten-month resolutions—the New Year’s resolutions didn’t all work.
We got our flu shots, and we voted early. Both activities were as safe as safe can be these days. We are home, not sick, and certainly not homesick. We haven’t gone to a restaurant, play or concert in six months; running into friends at the Berryville Library Mural and Bench dedication or Hart’s Grocery store is a masked treat. Introverts at home are not necessarily lonely.
It is a lovely Ozark autumn, a respite from the endless, mindless, and mind-numbing news stories.
Autumn resolution 1: Enjoy the beauty of nature. One reason we moved here in 2008 was to experience four seasons. I stand in awe as gazillions of geese fly southward, honking not like Proud Boys or antifa, but birds on their ancient instinctive path following the sun.
The ground is littered with fallen leaves, and the sassafras is still scarlet, the oaks are coppery, redbuds and hickories gone yaller, the dogwoods are behind schedule. Our new maples doubled in size and are turning red too. Zinnias keep blooming in technicolor glory, until frost.
The hummingbirds left two weeks ago, and although I see and hear our regulars—woodpeckers, cardinals, titmice, chickadees—they haven’t yet come to depend on the seed feeders, but they will entertain us as well as the hummers did. Thought I saw my first bald eagle since summer.
Autumn resolution 2: Remembering Aesop, the ant and not the grasshopper. Coil up and store garden hoses, used in last week’s 85° heat wave. Haul firewood and cover it from the heavy rain forecast for this week. Clean the chimbley and the woodstove and watch out for wasps coming out of there! I pity the slow-motion wasps of early fall—they seem drunken, not accustomed to these weird cold nights. A solitary monarch butterfly flutters by.
Autumn resolution 3: Plan for severely diminished holidays. We may have our three young people here at Thanksgiving, sitting far apart. Our tradition has been a houseful of two dozen friends for turkey gumbo and cornbread the Saturday after Thanksgiving, with singers, guitars, banjos, bass players, and Jerry Landrum’s melancholy horn. Oh well. 2020 vision is reduced. Won’t happen on New Year’s Day either.
Autumn resolution 4: NaNoWriMo. November is National Novel Writing Month. My wife and daughter have participated, but I never have. The goal is to create a 50,000-word manuscript during November. (For reference, this once-a-week column is 700 words.) Wish me luck! Do it yourself!
Autumn resolution 5: Avoid Sundowner’s Syndrome. This term is applied, typically to old folks or Scandinavians, when daylight diminishes. We closed the screen porch off of our bedroom, covered the furniture, brung in the plants. Our kitchen balcony is bare, but the birdfeeders will activate soon. We have a glassed-in sunroom, but it is stuffed with house plants now. Having grown up in south Louisiana, my adult experiences with snow are limited to places I’ve spent winters, and unfortunately, the Ozarks have suffered four consecutive years without significant snowfall. I used to tread out in knee-deep white stuff to feed the horses and break the ice off their water tank, admiring the winter woods on the way, looking at the moon and constellations. But the horses died, and I can only remember how lovely the winter was.
Autumn resolution 6: Don’t get sucked into the political news maelstrom. I got my flu shot; I voted. What happens next is beyond my poor pitiful control in Grandview, Arkansas. I hope that we don’t get re-trumped, but I know that the forces of trumpism will fight back regardless. “Lock Her Up! Build the wall! Our lives matter more than theirs!” Ironically, the other folks see a parallel result: “AOC will turn the country to communism! Sleepy Joe is the tool of devil Socialists!”
Hold close your loved ones. Be careful. The world will not end soon.
Kirk Ashworth
Thanks for these 700 words!