In Praise of Stick Season
It is a truism that here in northern New England we don’t have four seasons, we have six. Of course we have Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. But we also have those awkward hump seasons: Mud Season, after the snow and ice have melted and before the earth has greened, when the ground lies soggy and brown; and Stick Season, after the last foliage has all fallen, before the world is blanketed in white, when the trees stand bare and gangling.
I confess that I have been enjoying Stick Season this year. MidCoast Maine is still beautiful, just differently beautiful. It’s a beauty not of color but of structure and vista, With the leaves gone, you can appreciate the shape of trees: the slender white trunks of birch standing among the spruce; groves of poplar like brushes waving at the sky; the gnarled form of an old road-side apple.
Now you can see into the woods to features you might have missed—a ridge, a field, a bog. You notice houses you didn’t know were there. With the leaves gone, you see more sky and water. Waking down to the town boat launch the Megunticook River comes into view, laid out flat between the trees. On the drive from Friendship to Waldoboro you catch spectacular glimpses of the broad lower reaches of the Medomak. At night, bright stars appear between bare branches. (The stars do not twinkle on and off here as they do in murkier climes; they hang bright and steady in the dark sky) Many evenings you can sit in our living room or stand at the kitchen window and watch a sunset that would have been hidden by trees in summer.
Of course, the marvelous Maine light remains. Mornings tend to be uncannily bright and clear. Other days fog lies prettily in the hollows and drifts across the road. Slanting afternoon light turns everything golden. Sunsets can start yellow before deepening to purple and crimson.
The sky threw us a couple of unexpected treats this past month. The moon and Jupiter have been hanging out together. One evening, as we returned home, we looked up our back hill to see them both surrounded by a large halo of light (courtesy of some high ice clouds). Another day, as I walked out through the barn to my office, I was greeted by a brilliant rainbow arcing out of the trees at the edge of our field.
One of my favorite things to do this season has been to head down to the water. I wait til the kids are in bed and I hear the wind rustling the treetops. Moonless nights it’s so dark you get a slight thrill of primordial fear as you feel your way along the road, and you need a flashlight to navigate the beach. But when the moon is close to full, the road lays out clear like a ghostly ribbon through the woods. A brisk 15 minute walk and I’m out on the point where I can sit on the rocks, feel the wind off the water full on my face, and contemplate the power of the forces that shape this place we love. And then, content, I turn back to the cozy warmth of our farmhouse, nestled between wood and field.
Steve