november 1

Riding down a wooded path near the Monroe County Illinois bluffs this weekend, I mentioned to the driver that it was easier to see the sheer rock bluffs this time of year as the leaves were so much less dense than in the summer. She said this: " By November 1 the woods are already beginning to show their bones." The transparency is always a bit disconcerting at the same time that it is unavoidable.

A day of hard rain and stiff wind and much of the color has already been knocked out of the trees and onto the ground. What they call the "peak" of autumn is past and we are on the steep slope down into winter. The season changes right before your eyes and the time seems to fall behind even while you

are standing still.

Say "autumn" and we think color. Say winter and we think the opposite. We are so conditioned and there's not much we can do about it but sit back a day or two and reflect and then move on. The writer Richard Brautigan said about these transitioning days:

" With the cold autumn wind upon them, they had decided that the future held only two

directions: They were either going to open up a flea circus or commit themselves to an

insane asylum."

People, the choice is yours.