dark

Falling into the well of the semester where it is impossible to believe it is almost November. The leaves are nearly down. Frost limes the fields in the mornings and I have unearthed the scarves and the wool coat with the high collar. The baby has a new regiment of winter clothes--some handmedowns (the yellow jacket and two yellow snowsuits)--some things we could not resist because they are too cute and made in China so despicably cheap (the brown puffer jacket, the host of zip up hoodies).

And we have moved--out of college housing to a house with a barn and a yard and a contractor who is inept and apparently a permanent fixture. The first two weeks we couldn't sleep in our bed because there was a table saw set up in the bedroom. An inch of dust covers our clothes and mattress. There are no baseboards. There are large holes in the walls and wires sticking out of strange places. The house is cold and drafty and we can't figure out how to work the woodstove. Every day I kill so many spiders that last night the baby got a piece of toilet paper and gleefully smashed it against the wall, saying bug proudly.

And there is the yard, expansive, hilly, host to squirrels and chipmunks and woodpeckers. And the shambling barn and the decrepit potting shed with the moss on the roof. And the view of the fields with their dried blowsy grasses and the yellow sky at sunset and the dead quiet and the perfect dark. The baby says star when we go outside at night and they burst forth, hundreds upon hundreds, festooned with planets and satellites and high-flying planes. There is a swing in the yard and the baby's ball and his puch car and he is in heaven when we push open the sliding glass door every morning. We eat breakfast while watching the birds at the birdfeeder. He stands in the light of the great room and paints at his easel. On the porch are mums and pumpkins, including the small ones the baby picked out at the patch where the woman with the surgical mask remembered him by name. These we will tip into the bare plot around the front porch and hope that they grow, a tangle of fairytale vines and giant squash to replace the lightbulbs and paint cans that currently reside there.

We are trying our best to imbue this house with good energy. My parents came for a week visit and we painted my office and the baby's room sunny yellow, harvest yellow, the color of the palest ginko leaves. My mother painted one wall of the baby's room with green and white weed-trees--straight out of Seuss and today I plan to add a flock of grey birds. We drilled holes and patched others, rewired things and scrubbed cabinets. Each morning the baby woke calling "Poppop" and my father grinned when we came down the stairs. We have spent fortunes at Lowes and Home Depot. A crow calls in the fir tree outside.

But oh how I miss the warm wood of our old apartment. And the sidewalk up the hill and our walks to the glen. And the peace of the house, with its orderly square rooms and the big open dining room with its flying paper cranes. We are still figuring out where to put ourselves here. The baby seems to be making the transition more easily than we are. He is newly obsessed with trains, has memorized the location of one fenced up by the arterial and whoots at it moments before we pass. He knows so many words now and is a mischevious mimic. He eats everything and discovered cookies with his grandparents' visit. Yesterday was the Halloween party at his daycare center and he went as a pirate, roly-poly and striped, shy in my arms, then dancing to Madonna and stomping up and down the ramps.

Slowly we are unpacking, readying ourselves for winter. The baby lights the rooms as he passes through them. We will make chili and cornbread in the strange oven. I will mash pumpkin for muffins. The windchimes are ringing outside. Lanterns hang in the old tree by the swingset. Today I will scrub the floors and paint birds onto the walls and radiate good intentions. And each night the stars will come faster and faster until we are at the door of the new year and the world tips back toward sun.