Sylvia's Journal

The temperature is dipping closer and closer to freezing. In fact, while I was in Charleston, Manchester had its first frost and we lost all our basil plants, the Thai, the purple-leaf and the regular ones. It is always a shock when our least cold-resistant plants go, this irreversible moment when the arrival of winter becomes real. There are always regrets about not having done something to postpone the loss of our most summery plants or holding on to them forever by having processed the leaves into jars or freezer bags. Nevertheless, since that frost, the days have been warm and sunny, and the plants that survived the first frost are thriving, especially the chard which we used last night in a subcontinent dish with the last of the home grown potatoes.

Axel and I took our leave from now 28-year old Sita and Jim after a long and leisurely breakfast at which everyone pretended not having work to do. We were able to drag this out till noon and then we left. We drove eastwards along the pike below a bright blue sky and me periodically looking up wishing I was flying back. The hills on both sides of the road are still spectacular in their patchworked fall colors; I cannot get enough of looking at them and pointing out ‘look, look!’ and wanting to store the sights forever in my mind.

For most of the ride back we listened to Henry David Thoreau describing his walk along Cape Cod’s coast to Provincetown. When we started out he was in Wellfleet and when we arrived home he had only made it to North Truro, where Alison lives. He has much to tell us, stories and historical facts mixed together with his own impressions during the walk and his encounters with weathered locals. We learned something about clams and oysters and that the landscape of 160 years ago is quite different from what it is now. There is something nostalgic about his reporting. It gives me much the same feeling as the realization that the brilliant fall foliage will soon be entirely gone leaving only bare branches.