Naked November

Last week, the leaves on the maple in the front yard were bright yellow, with splotches of wine-purple, cardinal red and pumpkin orange. By the weekend, the tree looked like it was on fire in the late afternoon sunlight. Gorgeous!
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Today, they've withered, most of them, and fallen in a blanket of dejection at the foot of the tree...and onto the sidewalk...and the steps to the porch...and onto Glenn's sidewalk and front lawn. Naked November fast approaches, flinging her leaves as she arrives.






Here, in the second photo, you can glimpse some of the maple's brilliance from last week in the leaves still clinging to the branches.

This is the melancholy part of Fall for me, the lingering demise of the leaves. Yet, this is also the time of year when I savor being alive the most. Maybe that's because the beauty is so fleeting. I have a friend, Kathy, who used to say she couldn't look at beautiful things for too long because she began to hurt inside. It was a good hurt, if that makes sense. It makes sense to me. For me, the pain (if that's what it is) of Naked November is due to knowing I can't hold onto the riotous, exciting, uplifting enthusiasm of all that color once the trees are bare. I take photographs of the leaves almost every year, but they don't do the real thing justice...probably because I can't capture how the light shines through the branches as it bounces off all those colors. I need to learn to take better pictures.

I don't know the name of this shrub that pops up in odd places in the back yard. It is one of the best reds in my fall landscape, though, changing from a fiery red to a cyclamen-rose color. Its leaves are among the last to fall to the ground every November.

That's a wayward rose-of-sharon cuddled in its branches. I like the color combination, the contrast.

At the side yard between my house and neighbor Glenn's, there lives the paw-paw tree/shrub I mentioned several posts ago and a viburnum (one of those whose name I couldn't recall in that post.)

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The viburnum's leaves turn a heart-aching deep red, reminding me of winesap apples, minus the white speckles. I put a few together in a sort of composed-salad arrangement, with the yellow paw-paw leaves.


If the changing seasons offer a life-lesson, it must be to savor each moment of beauty for the joy that it brings, for they are fleeting and sometimes far between.

Photo images above (c) Martha McLemore, November 2008

Light and Magic

I am drawn to light and color; things that sparkle and shine and glitter and glow. What can I say? I am Crow.
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(Didn't intend to have that rhyme, but it's okay that it does.)

At the Halloween parade last week, the vendors of light sticks and flashing scepters and swords really came to life after dark. Show time! They were the best entertainment for three or four blocks while we waited for the parade floats and bands to get to us. The vendor below is from Maryland. There were two other carts, full of similar glowing objects, meandering back and forth along the parade route, so I'm guessing they all came to Hanover together.
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Her wagon of magic had stuffed toys, baseball caps, light sabers, fairy wands, scepters and all kinds of things I couldn't determine a specific use for, other than to bring the magic of light and color to the darkened streets.



The flash on my camera washed out the brilliant, neon-like colors of the lighted trinkets. You can see some of the other things she offered for sale.
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Just noticed the feather boas! Cool!

In the center of the photo above, two light sticks diverge just above some red thing. Doesn't look like much in the bright flash, but...






...in the dark, it becomes a Light Monster!

Its eyes are askew, but maybe that's normal for Light Monsters.

These light toys flickered, some randomly, some in rhythmic patterns; some changed color, others didn't.
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What do you know? A little bit of Vegas has come to Hanover.


The first images I took looked like the camera wasn't steady, until I watched the lights and realized that the different flashes bounced off surrounding surfaces from all directions, making it look like either my hands were shaking or the light sticks were, which wasn't the case.





This one is my favorite. Makes me feel like a little kid again to look at it. It's Christmas tree bubble-lights, and carnival ride lights, and fireworks (minus the noise) all in one.
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What magic!











These butterfly lights seemed to flutter in the flickering lights around them.

Some of the wands had color moving up and down the tubes.
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Lava lamps on a stick!

This is one of the lamp posts in front of the Warehime-Myers Mansion here in town. The mansion was given to the historical society where I work a year ago through the generosity of William Warehime.

I like the reflected ball of light on the left edge of the lantern -- don't have a clue how that happened, but I'm sure glad it did. Makes the photo more interesting.


The magic of the evening had an effect on my camera, I think, for most of my photographs usually aren't very good. Not saying any of these are all that, but I'm pleased with how they turned out, for the memories they evoke, if nothing else.
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Hey! Did you vote today?
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(All photos copyright Martha McLemore, October 2008)