Autumn Started Thursday

I took this past Friday off from work, and so Thursday ended up being a very relaxing evening for me. I had the house to myself, there were storms, strange sunlight because of the clouds, and cool winds blowing through the house. And then it happened...

I have always had a weird reaction to autumn. And not the autumn that the weather man tells you about, meaning that on such and such a day the season begins. For me, autumn begins when there is a certain look to the sunlight, when you breathe and the air feels more aloof than summer air, when I feel a restlessness in me...just all sorts of sensory stuff like that. Part of it is a very wild, creative urge that shoots through me almost like a drug. There have been times when it's positively spooky the way the floodgates open, and I just start writing or drawing or playing and it's as if I can't keep up with the ideas coming out of me! It's a wonderful feeling...though it always has a sort of odd darkness to it, too.

I haven't really felt it as strongly over the last couple years (although the beginning of autumn is what ultimately what got the whole Ancient Elm cycle going), but it happened this past Thursday. I knew it was autumn, and I let the house get dark as the sun set and just let myself feel it. I know I probably sound like a complete crackpot, but it is what it is.

Anyway, the next morning I was just sitting and eating breakfast when all of a sudden images started popping through my mind and strong feelings were associated with them and, before I knew it, I was writing stanzas on a napkin. One after another, in no order (though I instantly knew what order they would go in later). I even thought stuff like: "This will go before the part about me lying in the hosta leaves" (before I'd written anything about lying in the hosta leaves...just had the image flash in my head). When I went upstairs to make sense of it, I had a poem in a few of minutes. A good poem; one that says something really important (to me). It just came out of me!

Some of the stuff that comes in autumn is born complete: it bursts in my head, I write it down, and it's done. This poem is a little more complex, so I have to work with it. I thought about posting the draft version, but I'm afraid that if I do it'll kill the urge to complete it. I have found that sometimes sharing something incomplete makes finishing it unnecessary in some odd way. So I'll hold off.

So funny that the other day I wrote on here that I was resigned to not being creative right now, and then BANG! Maybe I'm not as dried up as I thought!