Marigold Pumpkins

What is it about fudge I crave? is the most rhetorical question I have ever written. Of course, I love fudge. Fudge happens to love me. It's the first day without my anti-evil pill, Abilify, and I do not crave fudge this morning. Now, that said, if a pound pried my mouth open and jumped in, would I fight it? You can answer that question.

Each day is lovelier than the last, as the temperatures fall. Big sky clouds drift with the winds of the earth and then stay for a while. The morning is crisp under the stars, and the trees fill with sap. The moss is less verdant, more golden, and the weeds I did not pull last week have put out the fall flower, goldenrod. Every other blade of grass is yellow hay. The maple is still green, but the pond is black. Frogs no longer sing there. I am pulled back by the cool of the morning...

Inside, the coffee scent is everywhere, and the cat statues stare at me: black wood, purple painted wood with pink and blue suns, orange with black spots, and zebra striped painted stone. The old picture of a young woman on horseback gazes out on the intervening years between us, and my Mother's bottle of Chanel No. 5.

The coffee is Tanzania Peaberry, and it is especially good this morning. I write down a recipe for caramel brown sugar cake. I make cakes for Christmas, and this seems an excellent accompaniment for the season to come.  The dahlias bloom again, but the daisies have gone, withered. The marigolds are leggy, but spill over the pot like small pumpkins. The begonia is, as it started the season, with small red pinkish flowers, and scarlet tipped leaves.

I am afraid of the change in medication, but stand with a skin filled with flowers against the winter sun. But let's not rush past fall, just yet. The sun's light at this time of year reminds me of a fall long ago, now. A fall where the cool air hung outside and the honey cakes, and scents of the coffees, spilled out from the kitchen of a coffee house. It had tall, tall windows which were filled with the lemony light of fall. A black dog rested by my feet, eager to rest.