Here's to Our Autumn Equinox

September 23 at 8:20 a.m. UTC or 3:20 a.m. here, the 2015 autumnal equinox, when daylight and darkness are almost precisely equal. Now, I will determinedly list the good things about the autumnal equinox:

• Fall colors
• Fall mushrooms
• No bugs
• Clear starry skies with the Milky Way at the zenith
• Baking season begins
• Harvest
• Hunting season
• Time to tour wineries
• Time to prep the fireplace/fire bowl
• Walnuts and hickory nuts
• Caramel apples
• Low humidity

These pink camo wineglasses were a gift from a friend who knows my taste in stemware.

"Kommt von irgendwo ein Lichtlein her"

My stepfather's first wife, a lively German-born woman, had fine china and subscribed to Hausfrau magazine, sent from Germany. She, Helen, very sadly died of ALS in her forties. Their house was filled with German objects and handicrafts, including a hand-painted and framed 12-line poem I happened to inherit. My high-school German allowed me to read it. It began:

Immer, wenn Du meinst
es geht nicht mehr,
kommt von irgendwo
ein Lichtlein her. . .

Always, when you think
you can't go on anymore,
comes from somewhere
a little light. . .

It continues to say, "so that you try once again, and sing from sunshine and joy, and your burdens feel lighter, and you again become cheerful."

The poem fits my artificial-sunlight lamp, brought out of storage to glow at my side on dark mornings or late afternoons. Often in September I begin to lose heart, find everything difficult, and enjoy nothing but tiny cups of espresso. I'm one of the millions with Seasonal Affective Disorder, so somebody invented this little lamp, sent to me by my sister Rose. I didn't believe it could help, but it does. When overused (more than two or three hours per day) you feel not sunshine and joy but as if you've ingested too much caffeine.

And the Day Came. . .

.  . .when the sun rose like the moon. And only female hummingbirds were left. And the kitchen floor was suddenly too cold for bare feet and I shut off the ceiling fans. Woke from a scary dream -- extremely rare, but almost 365 days to the day from last year's bad dream. And I sought out and wore a sweatshirt in the morning for the first time in months. There were pie pumpkins at the vegetable stand and I wanted one, but, in denial, I bought an eggplant and apples instead. (It was a fine fat piglet of an eggplant.) Leaves are still green, but basil must be harvested or be lost. The weatherman predicted a high in the 60s by Friday. I try to remember that this day comes only to the lucky who still have days.

. . .clients contacted me, three on the same day, after several months. They are buckling down, writing again. I roasted pears and pinched the skins from concord grapes and ran them through the food mill to remove seeds, and froze the pulp for grape pie. Cookbooks lay open to lentil dal and and vegan cheese soup, and I contemplate buying King Arthur scone mix. I chose for lunch a slice of blackberry pie, now out of season, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It cost almost $11 but I have craved it for weeks, since blackberries vanished. I brought out the little artificial sun lamp that sustains me as I reduce my house to two rooms and then to the one with the fewest windows.

It is time to file, caulk, fill, cover, clean, oil, sharpen; assess supplies of salt, cat litter (for icy surfaces), birdseed, canned foods, and water in jugs. Pick up woolen suits from the tailor. Change the sheets from cotton to flannel. Arrange visits with friends who in two months will be hard to get to. Pay the house and car insurance. Propane tank is already filled.

The year is tilting.

A Sunrise Like a Moonrise

Last night had a nightmare, very rare for me. This morning woke up in light of a glassy moonstone grey as I hadn't seen in a while, and suddenly my chemistry changed. From the kitchen, which faces east, I saw the sun struggling upward though shrouds of purple and gunmetal gray, looking more like a moonrise, and for a moment I was disoriented: day or night? No; it's summer becoming fall, heading toward the one equinox I could do without. No one hangs onto the final days of summer as I do, begging them, please do not take my basil and hummingbirds and "honor" vegetable stands. But the morning didn't listen and whisked me along as the earth shifts on its axis, tilts away from the sun, giving me no choice except acceptance. It does, however, provide coffee to lift one's spirits.

Happy Autumn Equinox

. . .at 9:49 a.m. Honor to the unknown builders of the Divine Cabin who in 1930 carefully and thoughtfully aligned the front door exactly east, so at the spring and fall equinoxes, an axis of sunlight runs straight through the dwelling in a long line at sunrise and sunset. It's Druidic. It's divine!