the colors

There are wispy, bright white clouds up there today, in a sky that is a bright, summery blue, belying the distinct fall chill that wafts over me with every little puff of breeze. There is a silence here for now, at Great Meadows Campground, but it’s race weekend in Loudon, and before long, the avid race-goers will return and take up their temporary residence in tents and campers festooned with racing flags. I will enjoy the silence while it lasts.

Every so often, the angry chattering of busy chipmunks disturbs my peace, but I smile as I glance up to the top of the 60 foot pines, enchanted by their crazy antics and impressed by their agility.

I should be doing the homework load from hell that my professors have assigned this week, but instead I’m feeling the breeze, analyzing the exact amount of dioxazine purple I would have to add to pacific blue to make that sky color, and smiling at the chippies. And occasionally, I sent some good thoughts to a friend who's in labor as we speak, waiting to welcome her little autumn baby boy.  Every so often I tell myself off – girl, stop daydreaming and pick up that book. Start analyzing Native American literature, not sky colors. Get on with it!

Instead, my thoughts turn to apples – didn’t Rachel say she was going to make me a pie??  Hint, hint!!  And crisp fall leaves in their myriad of rampant color swirling around me. And bright yellow butternut squash and apple soup. And Halloween, pumpkin carving and new ideas I have for decorations.

Yes, fall is all about color, and while it brings the foreboding of the long, harsh winter, it is definitely to be celebrated, to be admired. Yes. I shall pull a blanket around me as I sit here at camp, and I shall revel in the colors.

I am fairly incapacitated today.  The vertigo I have suffered since the car accident ramped itself up into the red danger zone yesterday, and threw me down the basement stairs.  Nothing broken, thankfully, but I am a mass of color myself!  Nowhere near as pretty as the colors of fall, I might add! 

This day feels like the medicine I need. Calm, quiet and serene;  blue, white and cool.  

It’s a good day. A surprisingly good day.