Notes From the Field -- Transitions

Listen close. You can hear the difference.

All summer, a breeze through the trees sings primarily of life. Sometimes a sudden freshening warns of impending storm. Especially come evening, wind and trees and clear nights together might whisper of wonder and mystery. You can hear it, provided you're awake.

These last couple weeks as the light's fallen low, that same chorus through those same trees is turned brittle. Not yet cold, exactly. Little warmth left, either. Like millions of tiny skeletons, shrugging dry skin from agitated bones.

The time for passing is at hand, they cry.

In olden days (think 40 years ago), long about the third week of September every year we'd give ourselves over to the wilderness. That was the spot on the calendar when autumn's full, flagrant display most reliably graced the Gogebic Range, our gateway to the great wilderness beyond.

Some years the timing was better than others as years and timing both go, but more often than not the 3rd week in September proved pretty much spot on. By and large, we received of our indulgence what we'd asked. Even when we couldn't recognize until after the fact what that was.

Occasionally, the razor's edge between risk/reward wore mighty thin.

Typically, the weather during this annual endurance test was mostly crappy. That's a meteorological term, you could look it up.

Not infrequently, the raw edge of winter descended upon the Range while we were there. One morning Heather & I awoke to the sagging sides a darkened tent. Outside, four inches of heavy wet snow blanketed the forest.

A whole stinkin' season turned on us, while we slept.

The next year we sheltered in one of North Face's then radically inventive four season domes. That tent cost more than the car I drove, but it buffered us against the wildest caprice of late September in the northwoods. Not having to flee in the face of that would've been cheap at twice the price.

We meant to persevere against whatever autumn threw at us.

To understand that in the real world there're only two times of every day that matter a damn - light & dark. Of seasons just warm or cold, with a bit of mixed blessing between each. We meant to take life as it came, not try and invent it.

At least for a while. Then return home to relative safe harbor knowing we'd done that, however briefly. Knowing it was in us, to do.

So much the better, those years when we happened to meet the autumnal equinox head on in a place where that really counts.

Impossibly young, awash in the vast wilderness that flowed steadily from summer into winter and purposefully positioned on the cusp, pagan belief came easy. If shy wood sprites, powerful fairies and other such do exist, tell me they don't live here: 

If not, then they should.

These days, full raging autumn at the point of dying typically comes to the Gogebic Range sometime in October. Make of that change over the years what you will, there it is. A mere ten days ago, everything was still mostly green.

The steadily sinking sun blazed hot on the Superior Basin for days and a south wind blew a breath of life back into the woods. One afternoon I swam in the big lake as if it were high summer. The water was at least as warm as it'd been this past July.

Thinking it unproductively bland, I booked out early. Most of these images are from my back catalog of many Septembers. It's a large catalog.

*

Two days ago, the prairie remained hot & muggy. Broke the all time record for heat on that date. The old record was set last year. Make of that what you will, there it is. Records aren't what they used to be neither, for sure.

Passing Monarchs plied the remains of our garden. Most of the bees were gone. Sparrows savaged seed of the oregano that recently raised great wasps. Goldfinches tore at those sunflowers the squirrels can't reach. With night, katydids called. Crickets chirped.

Yesterday brought sudden reversal of fortune. Everything runs downhill now. That'll go faster by the day, until only open water lies ahead.

Since I left, to the Superior Basin has come cold rain, bitter wind and mountainous high seas. The season's first frost warnings are up for tonight, autumn marking the transition from then to now with frigid fingers.

On a quiet evening just prior to the usual week of September, after coming off the beach I sat awhile to savor lingering summer. Just me, the folk in that boat out there and the wheeling gulls. I thought this trip I'd not gotten exactly what I'd asked for, but was content with what I'd been given all the same.

In the gloaming I met a small brown snake in no hurry to yield the path that even after sunset held on tight to the heat of day. That snake moved only when I did, otherwise we might've stood there like that all night. I reminded the little fellow to be wary of owls. The snake took haven in the tall grass.

This year, my northwoods adventure was sunshine and unseasonable warmth carried on a fresh southerly breeze. That filled my lungs with promise for to better get through a season of short days and long nights. One friend's personal loss reminded me no season's entirely bereft of that save perhaps the most golden. My heart goes out to her.

In any event, what I needed most was the company of my very best Superior friends. By jumping the annual gun just a week, my timing was pretty much spot on as regards that.

Let the world turn as it will, I say.