Wild with leaves
Autumn leaves at Colonial Williamsburg remind me of all that I love about the season. November, 2004
“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!”
― Humbert Wolfe
The photo above was taken just a few months after we moved to Virginia, having lived in northern California for the past five years. I was almost unbearably homesick for the west coast. The heat, humidity, unpredictable thunderstorms and hungry mosquitoes had been a real adjustment. But when fall rolled around, it brought back distant memories that refocused my perceptions.
For the first several years here in Virginia, we had season passes to nearby Colonial Williamsburg. After the crowds of tourists thinned out in the autumn, it was magical to walk the dirt roads there at dusk. Fire torches and flickering candles provided light as the darkness fell, and the colors of autumn seemed a fitting complement to the carefully re-created historic atmosphere. My rediscovery of the joys of the season was the beginning of my love for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In our other homes far west of here, we had seemingly endless warm days and mild evenings, year round (or nearly so) and dearly loved. Yet four distinct seasons provide a different kind of enjoyment, and I feel grateful to be back in the climate I loved in childhood.
What are your favorite memories of this season? Wherever you live, I wish you October eves rich with autumn’s unique enchantment!
This post was first published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.
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