I wrote this back in 1997 and I like to read it this time of year to remind me of where I came from.
Turn Up the Thermostat
By: Matt Mitchell
Autumn invigorates me. The crisp morning chill, splash of color, and promise of festivals never ceases to bring life back to my summer-weary bones. I can almost mark the day it begins for me–that first morning shiver at sunrise when my breath comes out of my mouth like a car’s exhaust; I hate to see it by winter’s end but early on it gives me a delicious thrill. Early morning fog clings to the hills. Squirrels clamor for the season’s last nut. The geese above me fly grouped together like a giant arrow pointing toward the Caribbean. I hug myself and breathe in the air of the Month of the Harvest and it seems like every molecule in my body is energized and excited with the approach of the Hunter’s Moon.
Inside my cocoon of wood and warmth I live comfortably and turn up the thermostat a bit. I savor the thick whisper of warmth that envelopes me and I remember those days long gone when it wasn’t so easy to control my level of comfort. Standing in front of the thermostat I can look outside the window and, in the wake of the southbound geese, I’m left with the emptiness of yearning for yesterday, so much like the ache of seeing a loved one leave when you don’t want them to. There was a time when autumn meant something more than turning up the thermostat.
In our modern age, fire is used mostly for ambiance. When I was a young boy, fire was the giver of heat, and I knew the value of a hard day’s work meant another week of warmth when the cold came. To stay warm through the winter meant work, blisters, blood and pain. I spent many an autumn busting logs of shagbark hickory and oak into suitable pieces of firewood. I grew up on the Coosa River and my father wanted things done the old way, so the old way was the way we did them. I guess I figure now that his way was best. It taught me to respect life and what it meant to survive.
Back then, when time came for bed I would step out into the cold and bring an armful of wood in to pack the fireplace full. Then I would dress in my pajamas and crawl beneath the covers of my bed. The door was always left open to let the heat in, and I could see the red flicker and hear the crackle of the fire beyond. The sheets would be bone-chilling, and I’d curl up tightly, teeth chattering, and wait for the bed to warm up. In those days three blankets were a requirement, and my mother took great care in quilting them herself.
With cockcrow, I would lie there with the covers up to my chin, dreading the cold of the hardwood floor–and of the toilet seat. Eventually, though, the need overcame the dread, and I would leap from the bed and run to the bathroom, and then run into the den to dress beside the still-warm coals from the night before. Darkness would still have hold of the world as I set off to tend the chores of the morning.
Before breakfast there were many critters to feed, a cow to milk, and a mean old Billy goat that would chase me just to see me run. From the barn I could see the orange glow of the kitchen window, and a plume of smoke rising from the chimney to mingle with the wafting layer of thick fog that suffered to cling to the Earth. All this in the gray dawn–stars still in the sky but fading fast as the one sun came to melt the night’s frost and burn the remains of the suffering fog away. On the river the mornings were always foggy, which added to the charm, but by ten o’clock I knew it would be sunny with no trace of mist to be seen.
At the table mom would serve home-scratch biscuits and gravy that was country before it was called country gravy. After breakfast it was off to the forest, my father and I, neither of us talking, just riding in that old pickup to the eighty-five acre wood my family owned.
Chopping wood, adding blankets to the bed, and enjoying the thrill of the new season made life exciting and new every day, despite the hardness of the times. Come October there would be hayrides on horse-drawn wagons. I know where my father’s wagon is still. It hangs in the old barn, a victim of time, dwindling interest and long commutes; and in the wake of its passing is left some things more shameful to us all–pollution, laziness, and boredom.
With my central heating, I no longer have to worry myself with the cold mornings; it’s always warm throughout the house. Nowadays, there really isn’t much to be done at all. The only real meaning fall carries now is that the dog days are finally over. Back then, when that silver layer of frost blanketed the countryside, when the moon shone through winter clouds and lit the farm a ghostly white and all the firewood was cut, split, stacked, and in the process of being burned, then I would know that my part was done and we were ready for the short southern winter, made comfortable through our labor. Today… I just turn up the thermostat.
As I sit before my computer and type these words on the first day of autumn, I look out the window and see that the leaves are just now beginning to change. I see a few red, some orange, even more yellow, but still they remain mostly green. They have embarked on a journey of renovation of life only too soon to end as, day by day, the cold measures fuller cup by cup. But for now I get to marvel at this transformation from inside my warm home, and the outside air is just beginning to cool, and more and more it seems I’m segregated from that place from whence I came: from life itself.
Now, people spend more and more time seeking out excitement; redefining life on the edge and how to make it dynamic. Times have traditionalized us into being people, and as people we have completely lost the essence that once made us animals. As an animal, we’ve lost the vigor that made us see the challenge in life, and to be able to be challenged by it. Socializing and civilizing the world as we know it has done little more than ensure the boredom of generations to come. As a people, we have succeeded to the point of drudgery. In striving to make the world a better place, we took the life out of living. If only we could get past being human for a moment and just be animals, we may realize once again what life was meant to be: not living for greenbacks or new cars or promotions, but for chasing buffalo and climbing trees and watching the way water passes by a rock in a stream. I think in my youth I felt that vigor, but now? Now when it gets cold I shuffle over and turn up the thermostat.
There’s a blue indigo bunting that eats at my feeders every day. Even as the leaves change, his feathers keep pace by shifting from neon blue to a mottled brown, and then to brown all together. Soon, the forest will be full of antlered whitetails in full rut. Life throughout the wild, from flowers to trees and from birds to bears is going through a new genesis with the change of every season, the same as we once did.
And what do we do now? Our seasonal genesis takes us no farther than the thermostat.
In this day of mediocrity and drudgery, it would be well worth our while to rediscover our roots, to rekindle the old ways, and to retrieve that piece of us that went away not so very long ago; that piece that made us animals.
Matt Mitchell
September 21, 1997
written by Matt Mitchell
\\ tags: blue, bunting, essay, fall, indigo, thermostat, warmth
