| November 4, 1998 Autumn in Pennsylvania
Last weekend we visited friends in Millerstown,
Pennsylvania. It was glorious weather, blue skies and sun, the last hurrah of
autumn. Ever since we came home to Connecticut, the images of the weekend have been
swirling around in my brain, and I can't seem to make heads or tails of them, but I don't
want to lose them either. So this is mostly notes and impressions.
On Friday night we drove down the valley, long after dark,
and I could see the shadowy mountains on either side, sillhouetted against a deep night
sky. The stars were all you could see for miles around, and out in the country you can
see them, because there are no city lights.
Saturday morning we woke up to sun coming in the windows of a
white farmhouse on the side of a mountain, and outside the window was a tangle of empty
branches in dramatic relief against a blue and white sky.
Driving down the valley in the daylight, on Halloween, I
loved seeing the farms again, the brown and green fields like ribbons striping the rolling
hills. Wide swathes of dry brown corn, interwoven with fields of lush grass, the
greenest you could imagine.
We drove to the Amish farm store, where they have fifty kinds
of jam and preserves. Black raspberry jelly, dewberry jam, huckleberry jam, sour
cherry preserves. A table groaning with baked goods, cherry pie and sugar cookies,
raspberry wheat bars, whole wheat bread (the kind that makes good French toast!).
Ten kinds of apples, all home grown. A mountain of gourds, huge, strange.
Green, yellow, orange, purple, gray . . . some splotchy, some stripy, some wrinkled and
warty. Some just looked like they came from outer space, the wrinkled gray brain of
a giant alien, or a very large green cigar.
The Juniata, a swift cold river, its clear surface like a
window to the flat stones beneath the water. Across the river, the trees in the last
throes of autumn color, tones of gold and orange and red all rusted into muted shades of
brown, glowing in the morning sun.
The little towns, all redbrick and stone, each one the center
of someone's world. A small Pennsylvania college, sleepy on a Saturday morning.
An avenue lined with gingko trees all in gold, leaves like tiny golden fans
floating gracefully to the ground. A carpet of gold, juxtaposed with that horrible
gingko smell! (It's rancid!)
Walking up to the top of a ridge just to get the view -- up
and down the valley, and through a break in the mountains you can see the next valley
over. Then walking down to a pond in a tree-lined clearing, a secret tucked away in
the hollow of the hill.
Saturday night, we saw the sky as I have only seen it in
rural Pennsylvania. Black jet, strewn with stars. Constellations standing out,
asking to be named. Floating halfway to the stars, the silver half-moon, intimately
close. Not untouchable. A shooting star, the remnants of some far-away rock
burning up as it enters our atmosphere.
On Sunday, a red bi-plane against the pale blue sky.
Falling-down wooden barns with Mail Pouch Tobacco ads painted on the clapboard sides in
red and black. Sun hot through the windows of the car, the blue bowl of the sky
spilling out light.
And most of all, good friends to share it with, food and
laughter and late-night card games. Johnny Rivers and the Beach Boys and kd lang on
the stereo. Garlic pasta and home-made apple crisp. Sitting down together and
catching up.
. . . sweet dreams . . . |
