Thanksgiving 2009

It was a nearly perfect Thanksgiving Day: cloudy, foggy, and drizzly with tons of defused light casting a crisp, almost neon pawl upon the world. I snapped this image of the Japanese maple in my backyard from the vantage point of a second story window, to prove it. In photography, light is everything.

As to the subject: I bought this tree back in 1999 because my ex- waxed passionate about Japanese maples, and I loved to give him gifts. It was awaiting purchase at a humble little nursery off of New Hampshire Avenue a couple of miles north of the Beltway. When I first saw it, it was in late October, and it's leaves were a brilliant red.

That red sold it to me. That was the last time that I saw its leaves as red.

In season, they're a mustard yellow-green. In autumn, they turn brown and shrivel into little bundles resembling burnt popcorn. For the past decade, they've been a disappointment to me. And now in this atypically moist cool (but not cold) Autumn, the tree reminds me of why I bought it in the first place.

What to feel.....