Tag: fall

Orange is my Color

I am here, in Music City, the landscape freckled with oranges, yellows and reds.  Fresh from the Evergreen State, with its glacier-capped mountains and cedars large enough to drive a car through.  My head is still saturated with green, the green of moss-covered firs, ferns hanging from gorges, jade glacier ice, and teal alpine lakes.  Oft on the mountain in Fall, the bugs long gone to rest, I watch her don a cloak of beauty, reds and oranges in the undergrowth and sweeps of snow on tiny alpine trees.  It is my favorite time to be on my mountain, my spiritual home.  Now far from home, struggling to love this land, I have found joy in the brilliant weave of color Fall brings.

Orange is my color – it is happiness, warmth, energy and light.  Orange is the color of my heart, the color of song, and the color of joy. A tree gone amber or a field of tangerine bloom catches my breath, sails my soul. I honor orange with a leading role in my closet and a generous sprinkling through my home.

My heart responds with worship amidst the orange towering spires and arches of the Southwest.  I speak to my ancestors and commune with God in the land that surely, I once lived.  In this sacred space, as soon as my feet connect with the persimmon soil, I am with God.

After my first trip to this heaven, I painted my den the color of the sun hitting the red-rocked arches.  It had to be the den, the room I warm myself by the fire, gaze into while cooking, and map out our homeschooling days.  I could not bear the disconnection from my sacred land.  I wanted to feel the expansion of my soul once more, know again the feeling of being in my ancestral home. The den is my room and I painted it the orange.

The orange room became my sanctuary, the room I sought comfort.  As my marriage dissolved, as I lost a baby from another love, as I fought for breath when asthma squeezed my effort, my orange room, my sanctuary, helped me find my center, my peace and my comfort.  The orange of the arches soothed my soul and brought me back home.  Orange is my color.

Making Friends

I am set on making friends with the South, a daunting task to bend my stubborn soul and to see beauty where I refuse to look.  The trail, as always, is where I do my work, where I untangle the threads of disappointment, anger, trauma, and loss…The trail, as always, is where I weave a new story of hope, strength and courage.

The trail, here, in summer, is hostile and fierce, with its burning sun and air that tears open my lungs, with its biting insects and afternoon rain; it is an unlikely solace.  This is my story, my truth, the yarn I use to convince myself to wait, a little longer.  The real truth, the truth I am not yet ready to know- it is my anger burning, my mind searing and my heart biting.  I am still bathing in my disappointment and grief, not ready or willing to leave it with the trail. I want to soak in it a little longer, use it to fuel scraping the deck and hacking weeds- I need the power of my anger to conquer the years of neglect my new home has suffered.

I tell myself the fall will be a good time to begin a new journey, a journey to shed this cloak of wrath.  I promise myself cooler air, distant sun, glowing trees of orange and yellow, biting things to bed for the season, this will be the right time to ease my soul.  Fall is the right time to put this wrath to sleep for the winter.

So, this is the day, I decide, out on my deck, oversized cup of coffee twice heated, cooling while I take in the fall of the South.  This is the day, the last week of November, crisp air, sun warm on my back, lawnmower in the distance.  This is the day, shuffling leaves, driven by a gentle breeze carrying hints of wood smoke and earth.  This is the day, chattering squirrels, frantic in their final prospect to store acorns.  This is the day, glorious trees, oh the trees, the magnificent trees, oranges, yellows, reds, radiant in the sun, glowing against the cobalt backdrop.  This is the day I will begin my journey.

I know today, for the first time, that I will find peace in this land, in the stillness of this place where I can slow, write, walk, and settle, even in late November.  I am suddenly grateful to be here, today, despite my struggle, despite the difficulties I have found in this land.  Today I am grateful that my new-found solitude has, in return, offered me a chance to settle and find peace.