October 14th, 2003

Autumn is my favorite time of year. “Season of mists and yellow fruitfulness.”

Or is mellow fruitfulness? For some reason I always mix up that line.





There’s something in the air. Something beyond the hint of woodsmoke, the chill of the crisp, starry nights—something nostalgic in the scent of damp earth and crumbling leaves. I’m not sad. It’s too soon to be homesick—I’m a grown woman, after all. Many grown women don’t live near their families. But there’s something in the air that makes my heart ache and at the same time fills me with quiet delight. The world is going to sleep. Another year is ending.

Oh well. I never claimed to be a writer! Let alone a poet. How can one compete with Keats and that last wonderful stanza Ode to Autumn.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breat whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

In California you don’t experience the seasons as you do here. The trees are a-blaze with scarlet, gold, yellow, bittersweet. Leaves blanket the ground which is hard with frost in the morning. The gardens are still beautiful with roses and berries—dusty reds and muted purples. It’s a mature beauty. Not the giddy pollen-drunk exuberance of spring. Even the birds seem somber, their songs sweeter shorter. It’s rained nearly every day this week—that could be one reason.





I don’t want to think about the holidays. Those will be difficult days. Does Peter even celebrate the holidays? I try to imagine a year when we might go home for Thanksgiving. Somehow I just can’t picture him sitting at the table with my family. What would we all talk about? His last heist?

That’s unfair—to him and my family. Why am I so ready for everything to go wrong?

The truth is, I never met anyone more charming. He’s on friendly terms with everyone—well, almost everyone. The Chief Constable isn’t too keen on him. He—Peter, that is—knows everyone, and yet I don’t think anyone knows him. Not really. I wonder if one day I’ll read this journal and smile, because I’ll be the person who knows him through and through.

Yeah, right, as the young ladies of St. Anne’s would say.

There are very few tourists around now. The village seems like a ghost town. Yesterday I found a wonderful set of etched stemware in one of the little antique shops. In the summer you can’t find anything—and whatever you do find is horribly overpriced.

I’m feeling very domestic today. Blueberry gingerbread is baking in the oven, the tea kettle is whistling softly, and I’m scratching away jotting down my future memories. I don’t want to forget a moment of this time.