It has rained here for two weeks straight, and the air has turned cold. I've almost grown used to indirect light of these grey days, and squinted yesterday when the afternoon the sun burst through.
We went running, wearing hats and fleece, and the light in the sky and on the lake was so beautiful it nearly took our breath away. The hills were red with turning maples, and in the light of the setting sun they were on fire. The clouds, backlit and dark. Leaves blowing in windy spirals.
We ran past the beach---where in summer throngs of people with beers and kids with plastic sandcastle buckets gathered around barbecue pits---and the picnic tables were upturned and stacked for winter in a heap. Along the path, sumac leaves the shape of spear tips, had turned to burnished gold. And in the sky above us, geese in long Vs moving south, kept calling out.
I couldn't stop running: my lungs sucking in the cold air, feet falling evenly on the wet pavement. We ran past dark puddles where I could see leaves, sunken like yellow boats, below the surface. I couldn't stop, because those glorious fleeting moments of late autumn sun and clouds, cold air meeting the heat of my cheeks, made me want to cry.