Noel presaging Noël

Cold, wind, and rain today. The remnants of Hurricane Noel passing through as a nor’easter, this first weekend in November, and fall is suddenly over. Tomorrow will be a brighter day, but with a different light than Friday as the sun shines through newly bare trees. A winter light to recollect today’s winter wind.

We still have a few fall tasks to complete. Wrap the azaleas and install a couple of porch windows over the screens. Find some unpasteurized cider for the porch. Change our furnace filter. But we completed the big ones: carve a pumpkin, go on a hay ride, look for the most spectacular trees, watch the football season develop and the baseball season end, partake in a cider donut and some token Halloween candy and that favorite squash soup.

Time rushes along, with Thanksgiving and Chanukah early this year. In three weeks Thanksgiving will be over, in five weeks Chanukah will be more than halfway lit, and in seven weeks we’ll be heading north for Christmas. The least we can do is forestall winter for one more hour, write about the fall, and know that the harsh weather of today would be washing away snow in a couple of months. Tonight we’ll set our clocks back, and wake tomorrow to a warmer day and that winter light.