October Open Spaces

 

Open Spaces

By John W. Vander Velden

Vol, 21.10

October 25, 2021

I have been reminded, repeatedly, that Halloween is this weekend. Not that I am big into ghosts and goblins or witches and such, though I have written a spooky stories in the past. But the approach of Halloween is a certain sign that the month of October is coming to its conclusion.

Where does the time go?

I suppose that’s a question we all ask ourselves. Especially those of us that have some frosting blended within the few strands of upon our heads. Time rushes onward and carries us along like it or not.

But October’s ending means we are well into autumn...a season of transitions.

 So on this rainy day, we’d gotten most of three inches overnight, I consider how the summer’s warmth had slid into late September and most of October. Oh it wasn’t oppressive by any means, just warmer than usual. I told Jackie just yesterday that we normally get the first killing frost around the middle of October.

That’s the farmer in me.

But even as November approaches we haven’t had even a light frost this year. Yet the weather is a changin’. The leaves are falling and there is no doubt the days are shorter. I am reminded that each year is different. It helps to keep us on our toes. So enjoy the good weather days, and bundle up for the others.

Now for a bit of writing news.

I have finished the first pass of the editorial revise of my next book. A major task completed. I am, presently reading With the Sun’s Rising, the third book of the Misty Creek Saga, out loud to Jackie. It’s her first exposure to this volume and an opportunity for me to catch errors I have missed. Things like repeated words, echoes my editor calls them, or opening too many paragraphs with identical words. I keep my eyes open for “crutch” phrases. Word groups I use far too often. Fact is each time I read through a manuscript I stumble onto mistakes, but reading the text out loud, verbalizing the scenes, helps to catch many of them.

I also have three Author Events scheduled in the next six weeks. The first is less than two weeks away on Saturday November 6^th from 2:00PM until 4:00PM, hosted by my friends at La D’zert Café, 401 N. Michigan Street, Plymouth, IN. I am very excited to once again have the opportunity to meet with readers face to face.

The next events will be in the Bell Memorial Public Library, downtown Mentone, Indiana on Tuesday evening, November 16^th, 4:30PM – 6:30PM. I love going to libraries, don’t you? The third will be in Fables Books downtown Goshen, Indiana, on Friday evening December 3^rd 6:00PM until 8:00PM.

If you’re in the area of any of these events, please stop by.

Well I need to wrap things up, so let me close with something Eloise Jenkins shares within the pages of With the Sun’s Rising, when she tells Elizabeth that, Change is not the enemy.

I for one HATE change, and maybe you do as well. But the Handcock’s Bluff shopkeeper’s words carry some truth. Living means facing changes. Some are appreciated. Many are not. But we can, with God’s help, continue our life’s journey, accepting the changes that come. And in the end find that change never intended to undo us.

So as the weather changes, as this month ends and another begins, as we look toward the end of this year, we recognize that each day...each and every day...brings with it changes. Embrace the new days. Experience the new opportunities, knowing that you are never alone, for God is with you, today, tomorrow, and always.

Blessings,

John

 

 

Raking Leaves

Raking Leaves

By John W. Vander Velden    

 

 

          There is a yard we care for that is within the city limits of a nearby city.  The reasons we are responsible for that particular yard really doesn’t matter.  We have that responsibility and we care for that yard.  Throughout the summer I mow the lawn.  In the winter I need to keep the sidewalks cleared.  Snow you understand.  But during the fall, it is leaves that require our vigilance.

There is only one tree on the property.  Just one.  But it is a large maple, and maples have a lot of leaves.  Sorry Mrs. Lambert.  Maples have a great many leaves.  My teacher told us that “a lot” was only properly used to describe the area needed to build a house.  But the leaves I blow to the edge of the street are not just maple leaves.  Or at least not just the leaves from that solitary maple tree.  For example thousands and thousands of leaves settle in the back yard and there isn’t a tree back there at all.

The house sits on the corner of two tree-lined streets.  Across the way is a property with ten oak trees.  Those leaves come later.  But the leaves I move do not have labels indicating ownership.  They just need to be moved and moved to a schedule.  It might not seem fair that we need to rake up other people’s leaves.  Can’t they keep control of their own trees, for pity’s sake?  But it really doesn’t bother me, because I know that the wind carries our leaves to other places as well.  They are just leaves, sometimes only a few, most times many, that need to be piled along the curb for the city to haul away.

It’s a job.  Not that I get paid for moving leaves.  But a job that needs to be done and I take a bit of pride in doing it and doing it well.  And most of the people of the neighborhood must feel the same way, because the leaves line the street as far as I can see.  You see we all understand that it is more than about whose trees produced the leaves that settle all so gently on the grass.  It is about caring for your little part of the neighborhood, and in doing so making the whole place a little nicer.

Perhaps there are some that get frustrated.  Perhaps there are some that get angry. But if they do they haven’t spoken to me about it.  It’s life, and for six or seven weeks in the fall each of us rake leaves and not really care whose leaves they once were.

You see during the heat of summer that tree-line street offers shade.  A most pleasant break from the sun’s rays.  And the shadow of each tree is not confined to property lines.  Maybe that’s why few complain about the leaves each fall.  That the benefit we get from those same leaves demand a kind of payment, and after months of shade a few, well maybe more than a few, hours labor is a small price to pay.

So I rake leaves, and I think about all the other good things in my life that require a little “payback” and I bite my lip when I feel like complaining….

(549 Words)   11/14/2017

Thinkin' About October

Thinkin’ About October

 

By John W. Vander Velden             

 

Been thinkin’ about October.  The autumn month wedged between September and November.  Seems to me that October is a month of change.  I guess the whole season of autumn is.  But to me October is a special month. 

Typically as a farmer, October is when harvest begins.  That was not the case for all those years I milked cows.  I always said harvest began around Memorial Day, with the first cutting of hay, and did not end until the last ear of corn had found its way to the bin.  Good years that would be before Thanksgiving.  Great years, and they did not happen often, by Halloween.

But things change, and October is about changes.  We notice the change in temperature.  Frosts come in October to remind us winter approaches.  On most years the leaves become glorious, the green of spring and summer replaced by golds and reds.  Usually those leaves abandon their posts flying on the breeze for brief moments to settle in our yards, in October.  We do not allow them to remain blanketing our grass.  Instead we rush about raking them to neat piles to be hauled…somewhere.

 

           It’s still football season for our area High Schools, and Marching bands yet take the field in Saturday competitions.  It can snow in October.  It usually does.  Another reminder that winter’s at the door.  But the white stuff doesn’t hang around for long.  But I can remember my son sloshing around the field, counting his steps and fingering brass valves in memorized order.  They say you’re not a fan of the Bands if you haven'’ been snowed on...and like it. 

 

It’s October and things be a changin’.  But in truth each day brings some sort of change, no matter what month it is.  Life is about changes, isn’t it?  How we handle the changes tells a great deal about us.  Surely there are those changes we anticipate…even enjoy.  And there are those changes that come sneaky to the unprepared and turn life of its axis a bit.  Sometimes more than a bit.  And so as I think of October, as I think about changes, I become reflective.  I take a bit of time to think of the changes I have seen.  I consider how those events have changed me.  I wonder what I would be like if…. Now that’s just counter productive.  Things happened and I changed… period.  Or have I…Hmmmmmm.  How would I know?  How can I be certain that I have grown because of the changing environment that surrounds?  Perhaps I have done no more than adapt to the ever changing world.  Is there a difference?  Perhaps…perhaps not. 

But even if I have only adapted to the changes of MY world…I am different because of those adaptations.  So I HAVE changed.  Hopefully for the better.  So I’m thinkin’ about October and about changes.  About the changes I have seen and endured, and the changes, expected and unexpected, I will face in the days ahead…

 

(501 Words)  9-26-2017