Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Owner of Autumn


The Owner of Autumn

Down here in the south, the camellias often bloom in February. Like boutonnieres for snowmen, they fill the grey air with remembered colour, heralds of the cold-ending season at the door. In March, the perfume of confederate jasmine is as heady on the cobblestones of Savannah as the open doors of Guerlain on the Champs Elysees. The tulips appear in April, painterly swaths of yellow and pink. And there comes a perfect day in May when the whole of creation declares that the bluebird south surely owns the season of Spring.

But if your soul looks for Autumn - the autumn of legend - full of orange pumpkins and white ghosts, Pendleton blanketed hillsides of colour, red red apples and cold-nosed dogs, chowders, spiced cider and pie, the crash of the sea against a cold rocky coast - then you must set your course for the northeast, for that’s where it certainly lives.

On the way to Maine, I stopped off in Portsmouth, New Hampshire to find twenty foot tall jack-o-lantern men surrounding the town square. They grinned malevolently down at the top of my head, their long black fingers reaching out for my coat as I passed. I sat in a cafe window and watched as one crimson maple leaf caught the hem of a breeze, floating down the orange street in search of the harbour.

In Camden, Maine, after a waterfront cup of clam chowder, I wandered gold leafed streets that glistened like jewelry in a fine mist of rain. I met the smile of a wet Bernese Mountain Dog. As tall as my waist, with velvet ears. I brought back a sack of local apples and made an apple pie that afternoon, rolling out pie crust whilst gazing out at a lake whose face was encircled by the maple leaf scarf of fall.

Just as one day was ending, I drove out to the tip of a fir green peninsula to find Castine just as I’d left her, glowing pink in the last rays of the sun. Grand weathered houses still stand on the headland. Their windows, like the eyes of the sea captains who built them, stare out past the wind-whipped waves to the horizon beyond. As the sun dips under the rose coloured sea, little white lights begin to glow in the windows of the charcoal grey houses and the October wind whistles past my ear like a tea kettle. It isn’t difficult to imagine Hawthorne’s poor Hepzibah Pyncheon drawing a curtain in her seven-gabled house. Or to hear the faraway hoofbeats of the headless horseman as he rides closer and closer to where I stand.
I began to think of home.

I have brought back as much of that fabled autumnal spirit as I could carry.
The Songwriter is now fashioning twenty foot tall pumpkin men for our garden, and I am baking pies.
But I know if I want the genuine article, it does exist.
At the top eastern tip of this country.
In Maine.

Painting above: Village Square, Castine Maine by Tom Nicholas
Find more of his work HERE

26 comments:

  1. I dream of visiting New England in autumn!

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  2. Hello Pamela:
    How you evoke the spirit of Maine in this beautifully descriptive piece of writing which goes, as surely as you intend, well beyond the close of the year to capture, amongst the falling leaves, the very essence of a time and place.

    Unknown to us, we too are left yearning to visit this very special corner of your country.

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  3. As a southerner I, too, fell in love with Maine several years ago. I went in early June, though, before the official summer season had begun, and it was still chilly in the evenings. Heavenly. I stayed in Castine at a bed and breakfast that belonged to some clients who became friends. Castine was a wonderful place to stay - so tiny and charming - and from which to make excursions along the coast to the more populated tourist towns. I'll never forget the blue blue water with the undulating distant hills as a backdrop and the rocky coast, so different from our sandy southern beaches. And I was delighted with the friendliness and helpfulness of the locals, who defied all southern stereotypes of "Yankees," except for their strange accent! I dream of going back again.

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  4. What a wonderful painting! I thought it was 1950s England at first glance. I think Maine would definitely be on my *dream visit* to America, from what I have seen and read of it.

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  5. Yes, autumn truly is the best season. Just last week went for a gorgeous hike. It was rainy but that made it all the more romantic. Came home, lit candles, had a glass of red wine, made dinner. Got cozy.

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  6. Favorite place in Maine -- The Terrace -- an inn in Ogunquit. Lovely posting!

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  7. i want to go to your place.
    Thank you for showing it to me through your eyes.

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  8. I dream of going to Maine this time of year, you've captured everything I've always imagined it to be during Autumn...now I want to go even more.
    Also, I'm laughing a bit as just yesterday, my students and I drew a very tall (not 20ft) pumpkin man. I've never seen tall pumpkin men before, and now they're 'everywhere'...makes me go hmmmm! I'd love to see yours when he's all settled in.
    xo J~

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  9. I feel like I've just donned my favorite Autumn jacket, rusty orange, with a scarf and a leaf pin. You wrapped me in all that is fall, Pamela, and you took me with you on the trip full of scents and scenes. This is so wonderful Maine should hire you for their bureau of tourism - and I mean that in the most positively wonderful ways.

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  10. Hello Pamela

    Having read this post, I just wanted you to continue writing and tell me more (I can be so greedy). Your description of New England makes one want to pack and go immediately. Did you bring your dog with you?

    I love the painting by Tom Nicholas.
    Helenxx

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  11. It is just so far from me! But, it sounds wonderful. I did go to Martha's Vineyard once and Boston, and ate my way with clam chowder every meal. It was all wonderful and the lobster. It was huge compared to the small pounders we get around here. If I can take my weenies with me, I'll go again.

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  12. Yes, New England owns Autumn!



    Aloha from Waikiki;

    Comfort Spiral



    > < } } ( ° >

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  13. Twenty feet high, you say!!! I would love to see a picture of these marvelous pumpkin men. Beautiful imagery Pamela. I love the imagination that lives in your head.

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  14. Here in Oregon's Willamette Valley, daffodils bloom in February, but I think the camellias usually wait until March. I'm near the 45th parallel, yet it gets no colder here than where you live thanks for the nearness of the Pacific.

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  15. Totally agree; New England has the wrap on Autumn; aren't we lucky for such regional delights?

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  16. I was so sad to see the end of the post. I was walking those gold leafed streets with you, eating some of your apple pie.

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  17. The top picture c ould almost be the Cotswolds .

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  18. Oh Pamela - did you have to mention clam chowder? Impossible to make or get here in the UK - my memories of the US are often based on the journey between one bowl of clam chowder and the next (and how they vary).

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  19. So well written Pamela and I feel so very blessed to live in this part of the world you've just visited. But oh how I would love to live in your neighborhood when the snow up here gets to be six feet deep!

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  20. You are right, New England is autumn, personified! How ever often I dream of apple orchards and turning leaves I always think of them first.
    I love Massachusetts and Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island! This is also where I feel this county the most!
    But I have yet to venture out more into the South, a place I love equally well!

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  21. I simply adore Autumn and your blissful story. If we could just freeze these serene days for a bit longer.....

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  22. And in NH and VT, and really all of New England. Have you ever read Edwin Teale Way's Autumn Across America? I haven't but would like to. I love his Springtime in Britain:
    http://lettersfromahillfarm.blogspot.com/2008/06/book-reportspringtime-in-britain.html

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  23. A wonderful painting. At first, I thought it must be England, the Cotswolds or Shropshire.

    Thanks for sharing. I loved walking through autumn with you.

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  24. We do Autumn here in England, we may not be too much good at summer though, sadly.

    I wonder what you are putting in those pies? pumpkins?

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  25. Hello Pamela

    This lovely post put a smile on my face. One day I will make it to Maine.

    Thank you for sharing!

    Best
    Tracy :)

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  26. Sounds like heaven Pamela...so glad you enjoyed your trip to Maine! If you ears were burning the other day, it was because Vicki (French Essence) and I were talking about you...I told her you were hoping to get back to London next year and we thought it would be great to all meet. :) I'll be waiting....

    Best wishes for a wonderful weekend...I can smell those pies from here. :)

    Jeanne xxx

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I love to read your comments! Each and every one! Though I'm always reading your comments, I may not respond in the comment section. If you want to write me directly, you may do so at pamela@pamelaterry.net. Thank you for reading!