This, again
Every year I forget what autumn in this part of Switzerland is like. This part of Switzerland, where we can see the mountains but are not in them. This part of Switzerland lying at 500 meters above sea-level, this moist and temperate section of Switzerland. Every year I forget this, forget about the low-lying fog, the weak sunlight failing to break through, the damp air. The rain and the grey. The way the chill sinks into everything but temperatures do not fall enough for snow. Bare trees, sodden limp brown grass. Now that we’re on the farm our driveway is a ribbon of mud: there is not enough sun to dry it, not enough chill to at least freeze it hard. Every year I forget this, forget that from now until spring, sunshine will not come to us.
From now until spring we will be chasing the sun, gaining elevation, getting above the clouds. When we can. Work, Kindergarten – these things keep up in the flatlands. Hockey practice bang at noon steals our Saturdays. I look out the window of my studio – the studio with walls the color of Idaho skies, and now I remember why my heart chose this color – and cannot see our nearest neighbors half a kilometer away. Every year I forget this, this grey blanket. I can remember the exact color of light shimmering across Swiftcurrent Lake the summer I was nine, but from one year to the next I forget the color of this fog.
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Honestly compels me to confess that the mornings are worse than the afternoons, that often, by mid-day, even the Bernese Mittleland shrugs its shoulders and shakes off the mantle of fog.
One Response to “This, again”
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Beautiful.