Nearly every morning in North Yorkshire I would begin the day writing out thoughts and events. I would look out the window of the conservatory, and my opening lines would always be a weather report. This always made me laugh at myself because it seemed to be a consequence of living in England where so many conversations begin with the weather, apparently even conversations with myself. So this morning, from my parents' couch in Alabama, I report that it's 23 F, but the high is predicted to be 49. I'd nearly forgotten the great swings in temperature here. (That's -5 C to a 9-degree high for my European friends.) We've experienced all sorts of weather, all sorts of landscapes, and all sorts of cultures in the past few weeks. We left the perfect autumn landscape and muddy boots in North Yorkshire.
In Paris we traipsed through busy city streets strewn with leaves, tried our meager French at the local bakery, and looked in beautiful shop windows too intimidated to go inside.
We arrived in Florida, stripping off layers as soon as we stepped out the airport doors. The days were longer, the bread was smaller, and the kettle took longer to boil. I came kind of close to pulling out into the left lane leaving the grocery store.
Then it was on to Alabama where somehow, the skies really are so blue in a different kind of way, and the southern pines tower over you like old friends.
Autumn, or fall, is beautiful wherever you go.
