Here’s a blog-post inspired by the tone and
style of leericketts.blogspot.com — casual, self-aware, meandering, a bit
quirky.
Saturday,
October 25, 2025
autumn
leaves and telephone wires
hello friends
it’s that curious time of year again — when
the daylight seems to shrink slightly with each passing afternoon, and yet you
still find yourself outside, squinting against the low sun, trying to remember
how we ever thought winter was a distant thing. yes, the leaves are turning,
the air has a chill (but not full-on winter chill yet), and i find myself
pensive, look you see.
i was walking the other day — just the
neighbourhood, nothing grand — but i noticed a telephone pole, the kind with
wires strung across behind it, heavy with cables, and i thought: this is autumn
in microcosm. you have the vivid colour of the leaves, the dying light, and
above it all the persistent infrastructure of civilisation (or at least,
suburbia). the very ordinary and the quietly spectacular side by side.
there was a squirrel, too. you might not be
surprised. the squirrel darted across the road, halted mid-journey as though it
realised it was being watched, then resumed. i watched it for a moment, and i
thought about how small his world must seem, yet how full of purpose —
gathering nuts, running from nothing i could see — and how my world, vast
though it is, often feels cluttered with things that might not matter as much.
and there’s the thing. autumn offers a bit of
clarity, doesn’t it? the crisp air, the sharper light, they cut through the
haze of routine. i made a coffee afterwards, medium strength (not too weak,
because i still have that job to go to, that “verk” as i like to say), sat by
the window and watched people walking past with jackets and scarves. one lady
passed by with a shopping bag that had a cartoon pumpkin on it — yes, halloween
is sneaking up — and for a second i thought: we should all give ourselves permission
to enjoy the little signals of the season.
speaking of signals — remember how the leaves
turning is the tree’s way of signalling that the next chapter is coming. the
tree lets go. likewise, maybe i should let go of something. maybe a habit.
maybe a worry. maybe… the expectation that autumn needs to be dramatic. maybe
it just needs to be gentle.
on a wholly different note — but not really
different, because all these threads tie together — i spent fifteen or so
minutes yesterday trying to fix the kitchen tap. yes, the kitchen tap. the one
i’ve ignored for weeks because it drips, and the drip seemed minor, but now the
drip was becoming a rhythm i could not ignore. so i got the wrench, turned off
the water supply (don’t ask how long it took me to find where that was),
unscrewed the nut beneath the sink (which leaked a little while the top was off,
naturally) and replaced the washer. all done. and you know what? the silence is
louder than the drip ever was. silence in a kitchen is like a blank page. it
reminds you you used to hear something, and now you don’t. weird
sensation.
i thought about how this tap is like the
strands of cables above that telephone pole. they are there, doing their job,
unnoticed until they fuss. and the tree outside is shedding leaves, but also
shedding the weight of summer growth. we’re all in this act of shedding. maybe
that’s the theme of the season.
right, enough philosophising. i’ll finish with
a more concrete “to-do” list for the week, because lists soothe the mind (and
don’t worry — it will be short):
- buy a new pair of gloves (mine are worn at the fingertips)
- film the squirrel again (maybe he’ll do something less ordinary
this time)
- read a chapter of that book i started last month and forgot about
- walk home in the dark one evening and look at the street-lights and
how they compete with the sky
and lastly... be excellent to each
other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
until next time —
rlr
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