As I stroll through the woods, kayak our neighboring lakes, and harvest the plenty coming into my garden, I keep watch on the trees up on the hills. Once the chlorophyll begins to noticeably die back in the leaves, I start calculating my yellow index, my personal accounting of how many days we have until this wonderful place becomes glorious.
I remember reading a poem by David Budbill once (he lives up in the Northeast Kingdom and is one of this state's better known word smiths) in which a character that many would call backwoods is working with one of them newcomers who have only lived her for twenty years. As the two men stand up to stretch their backs, their gaze turns toward the red and orange and yellow hills across the way, and the backwoods gentleman remarks "Yeh, that's why we live here."
And it is.
Years ago, when my husband and I lived in Houston, Texas (nope, I definitely did not belong there), I discovered how deep my passion for New England autumn runs. I nearly went mad in October because I couldn't feel that sharp, snapping air, the kind that makes you perk up and feel more alive just by breathing. Or enjoy that smell of the now-brown leaves as they begin their decay process in the endless cycle of soil making. Or hear the loud rustling they make as you scuff along nearly knee-deep in tree treasure.
But it was missing the lower light of fall as it holds a single leaf in its warm hands, breathing a yellow like no other, that made me almost weep with longing.
My yellow index, so far, is right on schedule for the first weekend of October, our time for peak up here. We've started seeing geese coagulating in new-mown fields, fattening themselves for their coming trek. The great blue herons are showing up on the edges of the island, keeping watch for crayfish in the low water.
It's all home.
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