Welcome Autumn

One afternoon last week I sat in the green porch swing, peeling and slicing pears that my husband had collected from his brother’s orchard.  Their sweet, spicy smell filled the air as the juicy fruit plopped into the large mixing bowl in my lap.  The last few days of summer promised to be sunny, and warm, and brief.

A big, fat bee buzzed around the box of pears as I slowly pushed the swing back and forth.  It was a delightfully quiet moment; my mind drifted back to projects like this, watching my Grandmother on hot summer days in Kentucky.  At this time of year her kitchen counters were filled with canning jars of green beans, jelly, green tomato relish and beets.  Conversation revolved around how many ‘quarts’ she had managed to wring from the baskets of produce.  Telephone lines buzzed with women just like her who discussed how pretty their cans were; their own self-worth somehow wrapped up in the amount of food they put in the root cellar for the coming winter.  My contribution as a child to such work was minimal, but my memory of those days proves I was paying more attention than even I knew. 

The pears, now peeled and sliced and sugared, filled four containers for the freezer.  A taste of summer in a cobbler or pie or muffin will be welcome as the soon-to-come cold winter marches through our landscape.  My little project left me with a feeling of accomplishment. There is satisfaction in completing a task, so often in life it seems nothing is ever really finished.

Back in the porch swing I looked out over the green back yard, watching blue jays gather at the base of my blue bottle tree.  Does the sun glinting on the color of their own feathers attract them?  I wonder….

Sitting there, I poured tea from a bottle over a glass of ice.  The level of the tea rose slowly, covering the ice and approaching the rim of the glass.  Slowly, deliberately, I filled it until the level in the glass reached the level of the quiet feeling I enjoyed.

It occurs to me that contentment does not come in a quick-filling rush, but the slow and quiet trickle that happens over the years.  The fall is a lovely time of year, and a lovely time of life.   My glass is full.