To Autumn

Of late I've been enjoying the "music" of the autumn season and have overcome my sadness and melancholy at summer's passing.  I mentioned the poets Keats and Rilke in my September post, and quoted some lines of lament from one of Rilke's autumn poems, which matched my mood at that time. Today my thinking is more in line with Keats who calls autumn a "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" in his poem "To Autumn."  When he laments the disappearance of the songs of spring he corrects himself and says, "Think not of them, thou hast thy music too."

In my last post I wrote about our neighbour's apples ripening on the tree and falling to the ground. My dear husband, who cannot abide waste of any kind, mentioned it to one of their teen girls and offered to pick the apples in exchange for a bag or two. The next morning when I opened the front door there were five bags of beautiful apples on the stoop! I spent a day processing one bag (coring, peeling, slicing, freezing, making apple crisp). It was enough to inspire me to be generous with this bountiful gift. I stored as many as I could in the fridge crisper and passed the rest on to my sisters and to friends at church.

Thanksgiving is here in all its glory! I am thankful for apples and pumpkins and squash and all the delicious things I can make with them to satisfy my physical need for nourishment. I am thankful for poets like Keats and Rilke who feed my soul. I am so grateful for places like McNally Robinson Booksellers and Jubilee Mennonite Church that give me the opportunity to take care of my soul as well as my body. We had an amazing thanksgiving potluck at church last Sunday, and when we go to readings at McNally Robinson we sometimes enjoy their excellent restaurant. Just recently we have attended several presentations by Mennonite writers such as Maurice Mierau (Detachment: An Adoption Memoir) which I mentioned in my last post, and David Bergen (Leaving Tomorrow). I am looking forward to reading Rudy Wiebe's new novel Come Back, about the loss of a child through suicide.

I am thankful for writer friends such as Dora Dueck who encouraged me to begin writing this blog. Her recent book, What You Get at Home (a collection of short stories), received an excellent review in the latest "Journal of Mennonite Studies" (Vol.32, 2014). In part, Frieda Esau Klippenstein writes:

As a Mennonite writer, there is something refreshingly different about Dora Dueck. The secret to success for many talented Mennonite novelists and short-story writers has been their audacity or shock value.  . . .  Dueck's writing is not within this genre. It is not at all outrageous, and is notably devoid of indignation or reproach. Rather than amusing or shocking us to attention, her strategy involves layers of perspective, with which she lures us to a place of empathy and new understanding. Her characters are so authentically portrayed that it is easy to believe that Dueck knows these people -- perhaps is some of these people. With this level of ease and confidence, overstatement is not necessary.

Last, but not least, I am thankful for friends who have sustained me along my life's journey. They live on in my memory even though we may have lost touch over the years. Just recently one such friend arrived at my doorstep. In grade twelve Carrie and I edited the high school newspaper together, struggled with math and science and had a crush on the same guy. Our ways parted after high school and we didn't see each other for fifty-one years.  FIFTY-ONE YEARS!  It blows my mind!  She came to Winnipeg to attend a Mennonite academic conference and we had one evening and a lingering breakfast together. Conversation flowed and on parting we realized we needed much more time! Perhaps I can return the visit and spend some time in B.C. where Carrie makes her home.

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."

-- L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables