COMET WATCHING AS A SEASON FADES

The Earth Turns

In the Mojave Desert, from the chateau grounds in France, on Halloween watching the Holmes comet through a homemade telescope, it is the same night sky. This plain fact is made more relevant by actually watching planets and stars move across the sky on a single night, during a single occasion of star gazing.

This year, we officially entered Fall or Autumn long before the weather became cooler, and we were forced to look for last year's sweaters...and where are those booties, anyway. Our bodies adjustment is not just a matter of finding our wool collection, but a slower process of acceptance to a decidedly different temperature range. We are in rebellion with the season until we submit and find the joys of Fall. Chiefly it is the coloring of leaves, which I tend to appreciate as I drive somewhere and look to the side of the road to entertain me until reaching my destination. Then there is that delicious sense of warmth while well dressed when the air is cool, whether this be outside or in the under-heated home where boots indoors become a fall to winter necessity.

Essay by Rosie Dempsey