How are the words
"season" and "seasonings" related? My autumn is seasoned with the long, low light; with the dust of corn at harvest; with the shadows in the plowed furrows. There are the smells that are only autumn smells - the fields ready for harvest, the ripe apples, pumpkins in your hand. There is the smell of burning leaves, of wood smoke. There is baseball coming to its end; football being played under a grey sky brightened by the rustling of autumn's leaves. There is a northern chill coming up our spines when we don't put on jacket or sweater as we should; the kiss of sun is noticed now, and appreciated. There is frost in the morning, there is warmth in our good nights as we snuggle into bed to take our rest. There is a weight to the light, certainty to the darkness. The cry of geese heading south lifts the heart; lifts the heart, then dashes our hope for it signals another winter coming. Autumn is seasoned with going away, shutting down, closing up, hunkering in; is seasoned with a little bit of death, that tart morsel, death and a kind of cold loneliness.
Thomas Wolfe's North Carolina cannot compare to my Wisconsin. Certainly not Texas or California. Michigan and Minnesota - friends and foes, our central state companions - these come close to Wisconsin in light and variety and death. At least I think they do, though I'm not sure I could prove it.
We have lost our daughter to the mountains, I think. She won't be satisfied again with this rock and roll of land, this modest variety, when it is mountains she loves. They have another kind of beauty, a bewitching charm. But they, too, have their severities. She knows that going in. Perhaps that is part of the attraction for her. These Wisconsin severities are what I choose. What I continue to choose.
A hard frost on the windshield of the pick-up this morning, a very hard frost. A chill on morning's spine. However, I have not surrendered. I am wearing my sports coat, but no jacket or overcoat yet. It will not be long before I change this custom, I think.
Down the hill, the warmth of the water in the pond creates a small fog in the cold air above. The wind does not disturb the scene very much at all.
Blue sky above, sun on the golden leaves in the back yard. I'm as rich as a 49-er with his poke of gold dust - this morning, this light, this world.
The sun has dropped even farther south of due east. Morning shadows drop at new angles every day.
There is a whiteness of frost on soybeans near the village, on broken cornstalks, on hay ground. What you don't see in this picture is the strong odor of skunk. What you do see, farther on, is the hawk in his tree, frost on plowed ground, a long, wavering vee of geese riding the sky. Is that Green Lake to the west northwest putting its own cloud in the sky? Or is it a fire in some farm yard? I cannot tell which. The sky is smudged there, now.
In Ripon where the Amoco station had been, where they've torn everything up, now they've torn down the house next door to enlarge the lot. I am not going to pretend to call it progress. I am not going to pretend to like it. I am old enough to have a crabbed vision of what the world should be, and to hold onto it. Old man, take a look at yourself, I'm a lot like you are.
"OCTOBER 22, 2004"? Really? You've started it up again?
Posted by: dave | October 22, 2004 at 06:52 PM
Ah, no. Sorry, Dave, that is my stupid fingers again, typing what they damn well want to. It has been fixed.
Posted by: Tom Montag | October 22, 2004 at 09:01 PM
And what about 'seasoned,' which to me has always implied both meanings? It connotes a certained weatheredness, but alludes as well - at least for me - to a flavor, a spice, and a richness that comes with age.
Posted by: Siona | October 23, 2004 at 04:30 PM
Siona--I agree with you about the meanings that hang onto the words. Perhaps the Bontasaurus over at Via Negativa would do a post on the etymology or etymologies of "season," seasoned," and "seasoning" for us, including perhaps some discussion of the obsolete meaning of "season" to mean "to impregnate, copulate with," which does get one WELL along into "weatheredness," I suppose.
Posted by: Tom Montag | October 24, 2004 at 10:42 PM