The Fall is a good time for sensual pursuits. Sensual is a good word. It’s all good: Musty wet fallen leaves, deep breath, frost nip. I don’t mind the early dark as long as I have fire. Today a chimney sweep arrived with his Victorian broom and allowed me to go back to hardwood fires — those Loblaws logs just don’t cut it, or crackle. Think of a hit of wood smoke on an evening walk at dusk in the hour before curtains are drawn. Dinners on display. Voyeurism that’s OK.
Then there’s lusty Merlot in a rubinesque glass, coating and descending – best savoured on the exhale, through the nose. Mmm. In front of the fire (see above), even better.
I love a cabin bath this time of year. The clawfoot full of water steams when the door is left ajar. Sliding into that decadence I fight a giddy smugness that envelops me like the water; whatever possessed me to build a bath house on a clearcut is my God. And, getting out all pink and younger and less worried, joy is tip-toeing naked in the frosty grass — humility to Hell — on the way back to the cabin, the wood fire, repose.
