An exploration of abandoned things

Finding beauty in the decrepit

November gets me every year, not with a punch to the gut so much as a slow curdling. The time change has made me moody, and the two dogs are wondering why I’m doing everything an hour later. Back home, I’ve heard that snow has started settling in. Here, the weather still allows for meandering walks under a low-lying sun, but the leaves have turned the corner from blazing spectacle to crunchy underfoot. I’m thinking of things dying, of things returning to dust. A comforting echo from Annie Dillard floats down into my brain: “If I am a maple key falling, at least I can twirl.”

Do you see it too, the beauty in decaying things?

I’m rarely in the mood to think about those terrible months in 2020, but today I remembered a visit to Peggy’s Cove. I was taking care of a Bernese mountain dog while her owners were on a South American cruise. In their email updates, they’d told me that the ship had been forbidden from entering some ports, and the early pandemic pandemonium was causing flight cancellations that would delay their return home. I have lots of flexibility, I’d written back, don’t worry. I didn’t tell them my next nine months of sits had just been cancelled, collapsing like dominoes in a matter of days. Peggy’s Cove would be closed to tourists within a couple weeks, but on this day Nova Scotia was still in that pre-lockdown insouciance.

Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, March 2020