The Smell of Mums

My Romanian dentist gave me a bouquet of pink mums today! Why would a dentist do that?
I was admiring the vase of flowers on her front desk and she said “Would like like some to take home?”
I blustered and said “Oh no really, I couldn’t” but she took me directly outside, to her backyard (who knew she lived above her Milford office space?!) and cut the mums from huge bushes blooming there. 

Autumn is here… bringing the fireworks of hardy mums and the fireworks of the trees exploding into their last colors.

It is the beginning of the end that makes the joy more acute, like the perfection of twilight.

“It’s that in between time… we treasure it and it is gone.”

The sun’s going down past the pines
Shadows grow long down the hill
Follow the path known by heart
Down to the wide open fields

Now that it’s twilight
Twilight
Now that it’s twilight, twilight

The morning mist burned off by noon
The dogs never moved from the shade
The mountains were bluer than blue
But the best of the day has been saved

You and me, you and me, you and me
You and me, you and me, you and me …

Now we’ll be led by eventide’s hand
‘Til then we’ll walk through the gloaming
Back on up the hill once again
Done with another day’s roaming

Now that it’s twilight, twilight
Magical twilight, twilight

–Mary Chapin Carpenter