Autumn…even the word is cool and active. The lazy, hazy summer is simmering to a close and the world starts to get serious again. A summer breeze picks up speed and becomes an autumnal wind and every year I feel energized and ready to restart the year.
Autumn is the best time of year to clean out attics—both real & metaphorical—and we all know what lurks in attics: secrets, surprises and monsters! Inside my late mother’s attic crawl space there were suitcases, photo albums and an old Smith Corona portable typewriter. I took one look at it and recalled the absolutely terrible things I wrote on it! You have to start somewhere, right? And for writers, the first outings are usually pretty bad.
The typewriter reminded me of my deep and abiding affection for my COMPUTER! The migration from chunk, chunk, chunk through rat, tat, tat, tat, and on to soft click, click, click-ity click, is that wonderful evolution from heavy, manual typewriters to my light weight laptop.
I set aside the photo albums and gave the suitcases to a young cousin leaving for postgraduate work abroad. The secrets? They no doubt lurk in the boxes of papers. As for the monsters, they are everywhere. Cleaning out my parent’s home, I’m haunted by our shared past and the past before me. I’m running out of people to ask, “Is that a picture of cousin X?” or to confirm, “Did my dad do that painting or is it my uncle’s?”
It’s still hot and humid in NYC and I’m waiting for the cool autumn wind to sweep me from the malaise that overcomes me while I sort through the past. I’m looking for the autumnal wind that will send me back to writing fiction.
My old typewriter reminded me about the benefits of using a computer to write.
It has cooled off faster than usual in the Boise area. So much for an Indian summer. I’m not complaining, but it’s nice when the temps don’t drop as significantly. I went camping last weekend and it was frosty cold. Alas, I’m also crazy enough to be fitting in one more camping trip at the end of the month, but at least it’s near a hot springs pool 😉
Camping near a hot springs pool! Now THAT sounds like an autumn plan that will inspire fiction.
I can almost empathise with this autumnal post. We’ve had nothing but rain for days on end and it definitely feels more like autumn than spring. I know it’s not though. Every single fruit tree in my garden is bursting with blossoms despite the cold and rain. I can’t remember them flowering quite this early in previous years, but I’m no complaining. I’ll save that for when the hotter weather hits. 🙂
Spring! The other half of the world experiences the other half of the calendar.
Does spring push you to action? Or does it inspire summer daydreams? Every spring I think I’m going to do a great deal, accomplish all sorts of things and I make big plans for the summer. Inevitably, I get a bit lazy. It’s hot. I get tired. I want to sit outside at sunset and do nothing. Autumn has this inspiring energy.
Of course, being surrounded by fruit trees in blossom is a wonderful promise of fruit and pies and jams to come!