The view looks over a bit of the neighborhood, especially in winter once the leaves have gone. From the safe vantage point of our attic, lit with candles and fragrant with their spicy traces of cardamom, cinnamon, and orange peel, the view lended to the coziness – the world from a single vantage point. A section of foliage lit in fall flames against a blue sky and framed by the branches of an old pine tree, cradled as a view within a view.
Fall is about such layers, in what we wear, in the way the trees shake off their summer finery in stages, in the gradations of light from the window and the candles. The attic is quiet. It’s where I go to pause and think, to prepare for the coming winter and reconcile myself to the gray days on the way. There is a certain peace here, safely ensconced slightly above the lay of the land, protected and buoyed by its lofty nature. Meanwhile the outside world burns up before a bright blue sky…
