Sniff
I found out this week when the weather turned to autumn and big cans of syrupy sweet potatoes appeared on the shelves of our grocery store that Jennifer’s second best favorite style of music, after flamenco, is Japanese Taiko drumming. She thinks that when they hit those huge barrel drums in synchronized frenzy their rhythms take over the human world, except for the lonely flute which looks backward as it floats over the rumble. We went to hear this sort of drumming yesterday with Harlan and Marilyn and Eve down in Battery Park. There was a festival of New York City culture going on with music and dancing; the best dance though was the one Eve did everytime she came within arm’s length of a column of shimmering balloons.

We came to the festival with our arms full of containers from the container store. Since Saturday morning is shopping time and because the night before we had cleared piles of poop and urine soaked pillows out of my closet where we discovered the a family of mice had been nesting for the last couple months. We decided to pick up the elements of a clean closet and leave them in Harlan and Marilyn’s car before the concerts. This was fine. We are both much happier with the closet now on our way to a Night of Music at the Mennonite church in Brooklyn. Jennifer is reading a Barbara Kingsolver book and I am taking a break from ancient Chinese history, enjoying my new haircut.

This time of year when the air cuts through the humid fog in your brain, when two quilts are needed to stave off the cold at night, when the frozen butternut squash begins to sell off the shelf, when we send unneeded (freshly washed) clothes to Haiti (reserving only essentials), when the season of growth ends and the season of contemplation begins. This is the best time to trim what is superfluous and realize your life is sufficient; to be content with the time and place that is given; it is enough. Autumn is the time to reflect on the long life and where wisdom can be found. Right now, it is the best time to be present.

You can hear the Taiko drumming here