With the full moon approaching, the beautiful waxing gibbous moon was often visible – a pale disc, even as the sun is setting, and sending hues of oranges and pinks sky-over. It is a beautiful time of year. November fall colors are in full glory, the occasional rains make for good cloud cover, and the nip in the air makes for an energetic walk whether we start that way or not.
On one such evening, as I frisked about, I looked up at the sky. In one breath taking moment, there was the moon shining through the spilling branches of the willow trees. I took a picture, but of course, it captured nothing of that moment.
A few steps on, I smiled as a small wren pipped in and out of the gingko trees. The gingkos are all cloaked in a golden yellow. All of them are waiting: waiting for an older gingko who has still not changed colors completely. In Oliver Sacks essays, he writes of the communication patterns between these beautiful trees who have lived to tell us tales from the time dinosaurs roamed the earth to now.
Read also: The night of the Gingko : By Oliver Sacks in the New Yorker magazine.
It must be marvelous dipping in and out of the fall colored foliage like that. Imagine living in a nest surrounded by the golden glow of a gingko tree, or the multicolored heaven of a maple tree. Oh! To be a shape sifter would be marvelous.
Back home, I nursed a cup of hot coffee as I peered into the sunshine outside. I shushed the daughter as she came over to see what had me quiet. There it was: a big fat brown rat, sunning itself. “Ugh! Go away! Go away!” the daughter said, but the rat did not think it necessary to budge. I tried opening the door loudly, and it moved towards the shadows of the trees hesitantly. The daughter gave me a stern look, “What would you do if it ran inside Mother?”
I admit I had not thought of that possibility. “In my experience with rats, they scamper away, not towards you. Unless, of course, you were a cat, and the rat was infected by toxoplasma gondii.”
I looked at her with what I call a winning smile. She ignored this, and went her way. I let the rat be, and went about composing a little poem in my head. What I mean to say was it was a marvelous day to be outside. Thanksgiving can come in various forms. It can come in the form of
The moon in the willows
The bird in the gingkos, and
The rat in the shadows.
Nourish-n-Cherish 