FALL DOWN AND CHANGE

Signs at a fervently Republican household. Their Trump signs stayed up for months in 2016. The display felt too hostile, so I took the photo from my car.

Jarring, those political signs in the landscape. It’s the best time of year right now, so that’s why they startle. I admit that when spring comes I say that’s the best time of year, especially if the winter has been a tough one (that is, lots of snow) or a boring one (no snow, just dreary weather). Yet it’s fall that is the most ephemeral. And all the more precious for it. Fall can't be contained. You can’t know exactly when the colors will peak, or how red the reds will be, how orange the oranges, or when the wind will suddenly blow all the color away, and when the frost will put an end to it all. 

Only a week or two has passed since I wrote this,­ and the flaming trees and shrubs have already begun to fade. I can tell time is moving on by the new visitors to the bird feeder, freshly filled, the birds I'll see in winter: nuthatches, titmice, chickadees, purple finches, woodpeckers. The feeder is in its winter location now, near the rear windows so birds can be watched from inside. Ken’s favorite chair is in prime position to see them. Our bird book is still nearby.

The view from what I still regard as Ken's chair.

Time.  It moves on, doesn’t it.  

It was two short years ago that Ken died. Two years ago when Ken left Vermont. When Ken left behind all that he loved. Odd things of his show up now and then. Digging in a basket of random items that managed to sit untouched in the mud room since 2016, I found an altimeter, a nail clipper, a tiny lens snug in its leather case (for examining lichen and other small objects), a camping cup, an outdoor knife (all-purpose I guess, for cutting rope or gutting fish), two pocket knives, a comb, a compass, two tire pressure gauges (given that I have one in my car, this makes three), a whistle (if in need of help while hiking), BB pellets, clip-on shades, and pair of work gloves. I could tell a tale about each of these, because every item has a direct tie to something Ken enjoyed doing. They ended up in this basket because they were so random ("Where does this go, anyway?") and infrequently used. Maybe even forgotten. Neither of us might have used the camping cup again, or have need of a knife, or BB's or even a compass, or a whistle. The lens, the work gloves–yes, probably.

Although these things were close at hand, not many had been used in a while. Except the gloves.

Our needs change. Time changes us, as it changes the world around us. Has changed the world around us. Hugely, in only two years.

Ken voted just a few weeks before he died. He didn't learn the result. 

He could never have imagined that everything he represented and so much of what he believed in–the beauty and logic of science is one small example–would be seen by our current leaders (leaders? is that even the right word?) as just so much rubbish. He couldn’t have known that now lies are presented as facts, that science is mocked and scorned, that preservation of the natural environment is subservient to private interests, that our society is poisoned by anger, racism, and hate. That our president incites and encourages these basest elements of our nature while pretending to do the opposite, accusing others of the very things he does himself. 

I cannot imagine how Ken would have dealt with all this, had he been able.