Celebrating Autumn

The light has changed, and the air is crisper most mornings. My hydrangeas turn a copper-colored pink as their blossoms dry. The mums in my garden are brilliant purples and yellows. In the woods, the mushrooms are colorful too: red, purple, yellow, and orange. Of course, the trees are starting to show off patches of vibrancy—the early changers: dogwood and tulip poplar.

I say farewell to my garden’s abundant cherry tomatoes—red, orange and purple—so tasty with basil leaves and paired with mozzarella cheese, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar—a treat I didn’t learn about until I was middle age. The corn on the cob from the local farm has been especially sweet and flavorful, and the blueberries were unusually delicious this year. I can’t forget the cantaloupe eaten with cottage cheese. I will cut bunches of herbs—oregano, thyme, basil and parsley—and hang them from the light fixture over the kitchen table to flavor the soups and pastas of the darker and colder months. Finally, I must say goodbye to jumping in the bay at high tide to cool off after cutting grass and kayaking to see the herons, egrets, and yellow legs who spend the summer up Old Mill Creek.

Within a month, our winter friends will begin to arrive, the largest group are the Brandt geese who fly in from the Arctic to winter in the chilly bay and sample the seaweed along the shore. I will welcome their comforting conversation: ruck-ruck.

I am also learning to welcome my own change of season. I turn seventy next month. As they say, aging isn’t for sissies. Embracing it and finding humor seems to be the best approach. I remind the mostly female students with soft and high-pitched voices that I have old ears. I can turn up the volume and balance on my hearing aids, but sometimes that is not enough. Then there are the dry eyes, the bladder leakage with a sneeze, and the added difficulty moving from a squat to standing. Yoga helps, but it doesn’t stem the process. Ah, I appreciate my parents and the older patients I have cared for who studied my young face and wondered if I had any clue. Now, I am aware of being dismissed at times by the younger generation of medical students—what does she know?

To every season, turn, turn, turn as the Byrds’ song goes.

And also I struggle with the huge challenge of adjusting to the new order in the United States—the cruelty with which our current national leaders approach the world. How do I respond? How do I reach out to those who are the victims of such vindictiveness and destruction? Women taking Tylenol during pregnancy are now being blamed for autism?

There are no easy answers, but I have always embraced Rainer Maria Rilke’s advice:

 “And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."