When Fog Obscures

Today is winsome and gray.  Our backyard is covered with leaves, and they soften the landscape, too. Early autumn is a time of sharp contrasts as the sun drops lower in the sky. But as the season deepens and the weather changes, I take comfort in a blurring of vision.

I remember a week of warm, foggy days one November when I lived in Chicago. This was before global warming. November was winter in the Windy City (maybe it still is). We’d already had some cold nights that year and the warmth was a gift, a gift that I think Chicagoans appreciate more than most, so steeled are they to shiver five months a year.

In those days I had no car, and I met my ride to work by taking a bus down Clark Street and walking a few blocks to our meeting place. I remember strolling down Deming and Wrightwood and other streets in the neighborhood where I’d eventually (and now could not afford to) live, the fog revealing only tantalizing bits of homes and stores and churches. I imagined I was ambling through some Cotswold village. (What can I say? I was an English major.)

The point is this: When fog obscures, imagination endures. It's a pleasant trade.