Leaf Fall

Started raining on the drive home yesterday. Not much to speak of, but enough to trigger the release of millions of leaves. I understand the mechanism, I've looked at it closely, the way the nodule, where the leaf stem emerges, scabs over and the leaf itself, no longer contributing anything positive, is left hanging by a thread. Usually blown off by a high wind, but the weight of water will do the trick. I get to Mackletree, stop at the lake, it's mine again. no one around, park in the empty lot. I like to sit on one of the tables, the SE one, and put my feet on the bench, roll a smoke, and watch the patter of the rain on the water. It's neither hot nor cold, I'm wearing a long sleeved shirt, with the cuffs rolled up to my elbows. These Park Service shelters are just roofs, flown over masonry corners, handsome things, slightly oriental. Sitting under my preferred shelter, at my preferred table, smoking, the world seems aligned, I'm not getting wet and I can watch the water. I spend a fair amount of time just watching things. It's amazing what you learn if you just look at things closely. I was thinking about displacement, watching the drops of rain crater the water's surface, how quickly, we're dealing with liquids here, everything wants to flow back to the same level. Maxwell's secret hammer. Then you have to drive through the forest, and the leaves, you can't imagine, they dance around you like a sixties musical, there are times I have to stop the truck, there are so many leaves. Off the record, this is a record, the most leaves ever in a single day. Enough to drive you crazy. On Mackletree, that last leg in, the pools of leaves were killing me. I had to stop and laugh. Maybe you have to live in the middle of a state forest to get the joke: the leaves, like snow, completely obscure the road. I try to calculate their number, the number of leaves per square foot and the number of square feet. Lost in calculation. Couldn't stay awake last night, so I'll continue. D was at the museum, took a break from graphic design and we roughed out a calendar for the next four weeks. A lot going on. Some sort of friction I'm trying to iron out. D and I have always picked up and delivered the art, unless it was being done by professional shippers, and suddenly Pegi and Trish are making arrangements. Not a good thing, because Trish and her husband Doug don't know how to wrap and handle art, I don't trust them with it. First day of big fall winds, so many leaves, even in town, great leaf-devils swirling in the streets. The flag, atop the Masonic Building, was flapping off rounds all day. Sounded like a young war, as my Aunt Sadie used to say. We get the models crated, from the steamboat show, I haul garbage, gather the stuff that can be recycled. Looking forward to the drive home. What the State Forest will look like. It changes every day now, with a suddenness that is striking. One day you know where you are, the next, the path is completely obscured. And the driveway, lord have mercy, is only identified as a logging road by the nature of the undergrowth. Everything is covered in multiple layers of leaves. Traction isn't great on wet leaves; a lot like goose shit, about which I have some experience. Talk about slippery. I never fell on my ass so many times, house sitting, at Lucy's Crotch, an odd bend of bay into a brackish lake; I enjoyed my winter there, for the first time experiencing long periods of solitude. The outer beach, at Wellfleet, midwinter, you could damn well be alone. The whole point, at the time (always, maybe) was to be with other people, specifically to not be alone. To my credit, I saw this early on, I enjoyed being left alone. I could try and process the information. But I needed large chucks of time, a block, at least, per paragraph. There's a formula for that, an algorithm. Like there is probably for the chances of any given pile of books falling over. Late at night, one too many, you might nudge a pile, it happens. I usually just go to bed, resolve to clean things in the morning, but sometimes I turn on the radio, crash out on the sofa, and just listen. It ain't me but it comes from a similar place, another space. Wait, are we saying something here? My Emily, and your Emily are not exactly the same. No one's anyone is. Exactly.