Autumn, Acclimatization, and Acceptance

Autumn in NH is a pretty amazing thing - there are bursts of orange and red and yellow that take your breath away sometimes.  Autumn here on the island is quite different - subdued and almost tame.  I was inclined to regret that a little, until I realized this morning that I really do love this subdued autumn, too.  While I would have said there wasn't much color, because most of the leaves stay a greenish-yellow, it struck me that there is a quiet golden quality to it that is breathtaking in its own way. 

Outside our kitchen window, for example, are two bushes, growing up together.  One is that golden color, and the other is a rare red. The combination, especially when the sun hits it, is one of my all-time favorite sights. 

And so I advance one more step in my RI acclimatizing process.  I've always been such a loyal NH girl, but little by little I find more to love about RI.  I still remember the realization that it was starting to happen: I was at a basketball game in NH, and when I heard the opposing team was from RI I kind of wanted to root for them.  It was a strange moment, like I was a hermit crab who was getting too big for its shell.

But as life goes on I'm getting more comfortable with the growing-into-a-new-shell feeling.  I can love NH and love RI - I can love the way things were and the way things are - I can grow in my loves and in my interests.

It reminds me of my favorite quote from Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow.  The title character is returning to the place of his boyhood home, and finds that it had burned down.  He talks of it this way: "There was nothing there even to recognize - just a patch of weeds and tree sprouts with a chimney sticking up in the middle. ...And I can tell you a further thing that I have learned, and here I look ahead to the resting of my case.  I love the house that belonged to the chimney, holding it bright in memory, and I love the saplings and the weeds." 

What a picture of being willing to grow out of an old shell!  And in his case the new shell was potentially painful.  But he learned to love the house in memory, and love the weeds of the present. I find that so inspiring.  That is what I want my life to look like: a picture of acceptance and a picture of love.

Today, without even being aware of what it was that was happening, I moved just a little closer to that goal.  Today I can say: I love the brilliant autumns of NH, and the quiet golden autumns of RI.