The Photo Bin - October 2016

Time moves at a breakneck pace these days. Weeks pass in a blink, months in a heartbeat. Years flow by like rivers swollen with frigid spring thaw. And by all accounts our sense of time's passing only accelerates as we gets older. Age, it seems, is anxious.

All this to say that it feels like last month's Photo Bin was posted only yesterday.

But Autumn's arrived, as evidenced by the Haw River's bright banks and thinning overhangs. The next week or so should be spectacular. But that's for the next bin, I expect. For now, the shot above, taken the final day of October, will hint to what's to come.

Part of why it seems only yesterday that the last bin was offered is that there hasn't been much else posted here. For that you have my apologies. I've been trying to wrap my head around why I've slowed down here on the blog, why my scribblings have been few and far between, and am beginning to believe that a large part is my diversion into other pursuits. Mary commented this morning at the time I've invested in my guitars, now joined by this shiny new Gretsch. They're as bad as fly rods, I fear. 4wt and 8wt. Single coil and humbucker. Reels and lines like amplifiers and strings. Fly fishing and music. It's easy to fall hard.

I'm not the only one noticing this change in timing. The past month we've been graced by a multitude of lizards, out catching the last of this year's warmth. They've been everywhere. Tiny anolis scamper around the garden and the larger ones lounge in the deck plants. Eastern fence lizards fill the woodpile as I begin to deplete it. We have to take care as we go in and out so as not to invite all manner of lizardry into the house. (Okay, lizardry's not really a word, but I like it.) What I haven't seen lately are the sleek five-lined skinks. Guess I'll have to ask my naturalist friends about that.

Perhaps the most telling sign of the passing of the year is the arrival of the holidays. To me that means Halloween. Living where we do, we no longer get trick-or-treaters (and for that I am sorry), but we do have the opportunity to visit the Bynum Bridge which, on every All Hallow's Eve, is lined end-to-end with a rich array of carved pumpkins. Simple to intricate, there's a little of everything, and the air is rich with the smells of burning candles, hot pumpkin flesh, and the sweet, damp musk rising from the Haw.

I guess that will do for this month. I'll see you again, it will seem, in a couple of days with another.

Time flies.


What is a Photo Bin?