Gleaning in October
warm thoughts for cool weather
It’s the last day of October, and I want to share something I wrote in the beginning of the month:
Fall makes me nostalgic. I grew up in places where fall brought distinctly colored foliage and a chilled sea. I was born in the fall, and every year I feel a serene melancholy as October comes around. My playlists get moodier; sweater weather by the neighborhood comes on and I reluctantly listen.
Fall is a good reminder to rest. The nights are getting longer: it is time to make a cozy home where you can and settle in for winter.
Fall is also a time of harvest and abundance. On our walk the other day my partner observed an increase in “squirrel activities” as we heard rustling from a madrone strawberry tree. Bruised apples loll on the ground. Birds, bugs, and various critters rush in to get their fill.
My neighbor sent an email about raccoons feasting on her garbage, which I found amusing:
Hi All: I have been hearing a lot of noise around my house the last few nights, and finally caught our raccoon friends having dinner on my porch with someone's garbage. There were 3 large raccoons who together tipped over some garbage cans along Carr Pl, and had a feast with what was inside (on my porch). They are not intimidated by humans.
Fall brings to mind a specific painting:
This piece depicts three women “gleaning” the fields: a practice where landowners allowed laborers and farmers to pick up the leftover grain from fields after the main crop harvest. Gleaning is a form of food recovery comparable to modern day dumpster-diving. The painting is larger-than-life and almost regal, paying respect to a scene of rural poverty that apparently offended many a Parisian art critic’s bourgeois sensibilities.
I am often reminded of this painting when I see families of crows foraging in parks and dumpsters. The same image comes to mind when I pass people looking through trash cans, which reminds me that there are a lot of great food banks in Seattle.
I am practicing enjoying the aesthetics of images without immediately reaching for interpretation, though it’s hard to just feel things without constructing a satisfying conclusion or narrative. I have no neat morsel of wisdom to offer, but I want to share these images of gleaning, scavenging, and continuing to live as the air chills and things die or go dormant all around you.
Happy Halloween! Remember to vote!