What’s left behind after the flowers have faded, dried, their petals blown away…new life. The seeds for next year, enough to feed some birds, enough to house a few insects to overwinter, tucked in and protected from winter winds, little spider sacs that will bloom with baby spiders when the spring sun washes what’s left. Some seeds have scattered in autumn winds, others fall to the ground under snow, each one packed with the chance for life to swell and burst with spring rains, push roots below the soil and sprout leaves above, and next summer a little cluster of Queen Anne’s lace plants will welcome the summer sun and nod in the breezes, lie down in the storms, and open clusters of tiny white flowers to lure an insect to pollinate, then when flowers are finished and blown away to stand there in the blast of winter and carry on its tradition.
Well, that was fun. I was only intending to add one or two sentences but I went on and on as the story developed in my mind, and decided to leave it, unedited, so it’s a…story? Essay? whatever…in progress.
“In Progress”
I’m calling this “in progress” because, rather than waiting until I had the chance to work it over a few times, I would give it my best rewrite while the experience was still fresh. I like to do that with poems and a quick, brief essay can have the same treatment. It’s part of what I do to encourage myself to write, not trying to make everything perfect before I present it but giving the drafts themselves attention.
About the Photo
Sometimes everything looks like a 1950s horror flick on black and white film, especially using the old original 50mm lens.
This photo was taken with Kodak 400 ISO black and white film using my 40-year-old Pentax K1000, on one overcast winter day, January 14, 2020. I used the scans from the company that developed them just as they came off the roll of film, no adjustments at all.
I mentioned to a friend that I’d considered getting my hands on some black and white film to use in my old Pentax K-1000 for my Christmas walk on the trail, but I couldn’t find any to purchase anywhere, and had no idea who developed it now. There is nothing like black and white film, and it’s been years since I’ve used it. He mentioned he had a few rolls and he’d give me some, which he did, and I waited for the right moment to load it in my camera and head out the door.
It’s a cool and dark and undecided day and I am unsettled.
It’s trying to be 72° and sunny in October, obedient to the forecast. Yesterday was just as undecided, starting clear and sunny and heading toward warm but heavy overcast unexpectedly slid across the entire bowl of blue sky as if some unseen hand had pulled a blanket over us. Though the sun tried to peek around and through the clouds the overcast was absolute. The light dimmed, the leaves no longer fluttered in dappled sun, the birds no longer sang to each other from tree to tree, the temperature cooled at the beginning of what had been forecast to be a perfectly sunny and mild October week. No storms, not even rain, just a low gray sky and dank light. Today dawned just as dim and dark as the evening had ended yesterday.
A distant Nor’easter rolling up the east coast pushed the edges of its cloud cover all the way to Western Pennsylvania to dim these precious days. I feel unsettled because of it, because I have more energy on sunny days, I have much to do that I will enjoy doing, instead I am left with all my sunny day energy in this uninspiring weather, unable to do what I’d planned. And the second day of it felt foreboding, an unwelcome change that might be permanent.
But now I see lighter areas in the overcast, even bright areas, which means the clouds are thinning. Hazy areas of blue open up above me, with the promise of more to come. One wan beam of sunshine has reached down to my garden and briefly touched some scarlet and orange Virginia creeper leaves and changed everything.
When I decided to start recording my thoughts ten minutes ago all the sky that I could see was completely overcast, my back yard just as dark and still as it was yesterday. I had been moved to bring my coffee out to the garden and walk around the brick paths and look at my vegetables, something I do for necessity, fun and self-calming. The words came and started to form sentences so I decided to record my thoughts into voice to text.
But during the minutes I recorded my draft of the essay above the brighter areas in the clouds appeared and I looked up to see a spot of blue above my head. Over the next hour the overcast dissipated and all trace of clouds disappeared entirely, the temperature rising to a sweet 72, birds singing again, trees lightly swaying with the breeze, sounding like distant waves.
Changes come, in their own time.
“In Progress”
I’m calling this an “essay in progress” because, rather than waiting until I had the chance to work it over a few times, I would give it my best rewrite while the experience was still fresh. I like to do that with poems and a quick, brief essay can have the same treatment. It’s part of what I do to encourage myself to write, not trying to make everything perfect before I present it but giving the drafts themselves attention.
Here is the draft I recorded into my phone, saved as a text file. I like the simplicity of it but I didn’t think it caught my perceptions and reactions in a way that made the point about indecision, which was what inspired me to explore why I felt so unsettled. I may change my mind about that and edit:
It’s a cool and dark and undecided day. It’s trying to be 72° and sunny in October. Yesterday was the same, the bigger surprise because it was to be a perfectly sunny and mild October week. Instead a distant Nor’easter on the east coast has pushed the edges of its cloud cover all the way to Western Pennsylvania to dim this wonderful day. I feel unsettled because of it, because I have more energy on sunny days, I have much to do that I will enjoy doing, instead this weather has made me decide to do other things. Yesterday was a nearly uniform gray low cover of clouds, still, even the birds were quiet. Today I see some very light areas in the clouds which means they are thinning, and there are some hazy areas of blue moving in above me. One wan beam of sunshine has reached down to my garden and briefly touched some scarlet and orange Virginia creeper leaves and changed everything.
When I decided to start recording my thoughts just now, this guy was completely overcast, and my backyard just as dark as it was yesterday, but in the 5 minutes during which I recorded the paragraph above the brighter areas in the clouds moved in and I looked up to see a spot of blue above my head. Change is come, in their own time.
The painting is “The Last Bale, pastel, 7″ x 16″, 1996” by me. It is not my back yard, I painted it en plein air, standing in the field at a friend’s farm on a sunny and warm November afternoon in 1996 when, once again, a heavy overcast came from nowhere and blanketed everything. It wasn’t the sparkling afternoon I’d enjoyed with photography, but I decided to make something of it anyway. That sort of overcast doesn’t always make me feel unsettled—often I like it, and in this case catching that uncertain light and skies when the fields are spent, most leaves have fallen, and one round bale was left out in the field was more descriptive of that time of year, of the end of a year of farming, than a bright sunny day.
The morning’s brilliant sunshine belied the cool air, but the bumblebee, sluggish at breakfast on the spent seed head, foretold the change to come. The season had been awaiting the moment and the moment was here, and even as the day warmed and the bees efficiently bumbled on their way, grand and beautiful clouds appeared on the horizon, slowly, quietly parading across the sky, their size and numbers more dense each hour until by afternoon the blue overhead was hung with dreamy cotton and the voice of the wind whispered high in the treetops of what was to come. The day grew darker and more quiet until by early evening all was so still and dim that when the first few whispering patters of rain began their sound was clear, though unintelligible, as if speaking a language, like that of the trees, not of this place.
The rain fell quietly all night, lovingly soaking the hardened earth of late summer until, sated, it slept. As the next morning dawned the rain slowed and stopped, the clouds parted and cleared in a reverse of their arrival the day before, leaving the sun to shine brilliantly in the blue dome of morning, but the heat was gone from the earth, once again, for another season.
I composed this story in 2015 for a weekly writing challenge, “Five Sentence Fiction”. The keyword was “Breakfast.” I took “breakfast” as a time, not an event or a food because in the heat of August I was impatiently waiting for the season to change.
I fell away from these fun, intense little bits of writing from writing prompts several years ago. I find that this one, my favorite, is no longer available. I went looking for a few more and signed up for two. It will take me a while to get into the rhythm, but I’m looking forward to it.
The morning’s brilliant sunshine belied the cool air, but the bumblebee, sluggish at breakfast on the spent seed head, foretold the change to come. The season had been awaiting the moment and the moment was here, and even as the day warmed and the bees efficiently bumbled on their way, grand and beautiful clouds appeared on the horizon, slowly, quietly parading across the sky, their size and numbers more dense each hour until by afternoon the blue overhead was hung with dreamy cotton and the voice of the wind whispered high in the treetops of what was to come. The day grew darker and more quiet until by early evening all was so still and dim that when the first few whispering patters of rain began their sound was clear, though unintelligible, as if speaking a language, like that of the trees, not of this place.
The rain fell quietly all night, lovingly soaking the hardened earth of late summer until, sated, it slept. As the next morning dawned the rain slowed and stopped, the clouds parted and cleared in a reverse of their arrival the day before, leaving the sun to shine brilliantly in the blue dome of morning, but the heat was gone from the earth, once again, for another season.
~~~
I composed this story for a weekly writing challenge, “Five Sentence Fiction”. The keyword was “Breakfast”. I took “breakfast” as a time, not an event or a food because in the heat of August I was impatiently waiting for the season to change.
The morning’s brilliant sunshine belied the cool air, but the bumblebee, sluggish at breakfast on the spent seed head, foretold the change to come. The season had been awaiting the moment and the moment was here, and even as the day warmed and the bees efficiently bumbled on their way, grand and beautiful clouds appeared on the horizon, slowly, quietly parading across the sky, their size and numbers more dense each hour until by afternoon the blue overhead was hung with dreamy cotton and the voice of the wind whispered high in the treetops of what was to come. The day grew darker and more quiet until by early evening all was so still and dim that when the first few whispering patters of rain began their sound was clear, though unintelligible, as if speaking a language, like that of the trees, not of this place.
The rain fell quietly all night, lovingly soaking the hardened earth of late summer until, sated, it slept. As the next morning dawned the rain slowed and stopped, the clouds parted and cleared in a reverse of their arrival the day before, leaving the sun to shine brilliantly in the blue dome of morning, but the heat was gone from the earth, once again, for another season.
~~~
I composed this story for a weekly writing challenge, “Five Sentence Fiction”. The keyword was “Breakfast”. I took “breakfast” as a time, not an event or a food because in the heat of August I was impatiently waiting for the season to change.
