autumn crisp

Yesterday was a gloriously rainy, gorgeously not-officially-autumn-but-close-enough Pacific Northwest day. Mists in the trees across the river, sliding down the slopes to wreath around the bridge, dark and gray and cool and lovely, rain coming down steadily for most of the day. While we spent the day writing (me) and watching the Timbers game (him) and enjoying our day, we had all the doors and all the windows open to hear and feel and smell it, to soak it all up. Fall is here, fall is here, O Great Pumpkin fall is here.

On the first rainy day of not-officially-autumn, if I am a very good girl, Sally makes me a crisp. Pear, in this case. While we sit at our humble, rickety little kitchen table waiting for it to come out of the oven, listening to the music of the rain and breathing in deep lungfuls of cool, water-filled air, we talk about deep life things. Soon, the oven beeps and the crisp comes out, sweet and cinnamon-y autumn love in a 9x13 pan.

We eat it while it's still not-quite-burning-our-mouths hot, big white bowls warming our hands, simple mix of pear and sugar and oatmeal and flour warming our bodies from the inside out, and I think, this is my life, right here. This is the life I get to live, this love and this comfort and this peace.

This life, I tell you what. It'll bowl you right over in the most quiet little moments.