Ritual and memory and stained-glass leaves.

It's a known fact among my family and friends that I can be counted upon to repeat myself. I am a creature of ritual, most especially when it comes to family gatherings... the mystery of the new is often overshadowed by the comfort of the familiar.

One of my very favorite traditions is the annual fall Woodstock weekend that my husband and I spend with his brother and sister-in-law. The first year was actually a late summer gathering, but I, mountain-bred girl that I am, needed a fall weekend with time spent among hills patchworked with gold and green and orange, and the rush of wind in glowing leaves over my head. So I co-opted the weekend from August to October. Two years ago, the weekend took place days after we got engaged; last year, it was the weekend of our wedding. This time (our fifth year) was our first anniversary.

Every year we do the same activities (flea market, apple picking) and visit the same restaurants, and that process of layering year after year of similar memories on top of one another is just the most magical thing. "Was it the wedding house or the mountain view house that had the crazy staircase?" "Do you remember when we were packing up after the wedding weekend and there was that insane ladybug swarm?" And of course, "What year was it that Bethany got baked for the first time?" (Some day I will tell you guys that story.)

So this year we did old things and new things, both of them equally precious. New layers of memory were added to the pile: the morning hour I spent alone on the balcony at the house, listening to the wind in the golden trees; the sweetness of the port that the owner of our wedding venue gave us with our anniversary dinner. The fire we built and proudly maintained until four o'clock in the morning.

If you really want to feel the mood, click this link and listen to the most exquisite country-folk harmony ever recorded by a pair of Swedish girls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC57z-oDPLs

This was our fireside, where we sat up late listening to music and laughing and telling stories:

And then we woke up the next morning in our little mountain house to these leaves: 

And then went for a ramble around town:

Woodstock Flea Market

My dream house, on Rock City Road 

 And then slowly drove home the next day, stopping for apples and donuts and whiskey and wine.

Dressel Farms

this year's haul

Tuthilltown Distillery

Brotherhood Winery

It was a perfect, magical weekend, the way each of them has been. And as soon as the vibrancy of the leaves fades from my eyes, I will be looking forward to the next year.

Virginia country textures: Millwood and Middleburg

Take me home, country road.

One of the elements from my own life that I sprinkled into NAILING IT is the ass-flattening amount of backseat window-staring time I logged during weekend excursions with my parents. After having lived in cities or suburbs for most of their lives, my parents were enchanted with the unmanufactured charm and beauty of the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge foothills that surrounded our town. On any nice weekend when we had nothing more demanding to do, we were off and exploring. Back roads were preferable - the backer, the better. You always have a better chance of seeing something lovely along a road that doesn't look like it has anywhere important to take you. 

A favorite destination that we visited more than once was the wonderful Burwell-Morgan Mill in Millwood. The building dates from 1782, and is still operational as a mill - they do grinding demonstrations every few weeks and sell the mill-ground cornmeal and flour on the site. The mill interior, with its immense wheels and cranks, is a wonderland for any mechanical engineering buff or history nerd (of which I am firmly the latter - I mean, I was the kid who was actually excited to go to Colonial Williamsburg). I stopped to visit it when we were in the area for my friend Katie's wedding last fall, and though it wasn't open for touring that day, we still got to explore the grounds. On a crystalline autumn afternoon, it was as serene and lovely as I remembered. It's one of those places where the weight of history is palpable, as if the essence of the people who worked and lived in the building before is somehow just out of reach around the corner of time.

Antique store across the road from the mill

 The mill building

Lichen on the split-rail fence

Sun grazing the stone wall of the building

The glass panes are old enough to be ripply and uneven.

Reflection and sunbeam in the millstream

After our Millwood stop, we continued the drive back toward DC, and stopped for lunch in Middleburg. If you're familiar at all with Northern Virginia, you probably know of it - it's the ultra-tony epicenter of Virginia horse country. The hilly roads leading into town are lined with massive multi-million-dollar historic estates where some of the finest horses in the country are bred and trained. The town itself is lovely: sort of a smaller Southern cousin to Greenwich, Connecticut, it has that same genteel, WASP-y grace. And a generous sprinkling of beautiful 18th-century buildings with irregular mortar walls and bowlegged roofs.

  

ivy and black berries on the side of an old tavern

The list of this roof is so enchanting to me.

Allen and I gave serious to consideration to purchasing a six-million-dollar horse farm, but we figured we should probably hold out for something closer to home. Also we don't know anything about horses. So for now we'll probably just stick with our imaginary Hudson Valley farmhouse. Hell of a lot less upkeep on it.

I think fall is better than summer and I'm sticking to it.

Summer, somehow, always lets me down. Does anybody else feel like that? It has such a powerful presence in our cultural imagination: the cookouts, the al fresco meals with cocktails in dewy glasses, the hours spent with a book in the warm sand. And yet, for a garden-variety New Yorker like me, summer under-delivers. I don't have a country house or a summer rental or even so much as a balcony. All those fun-sounding, free outdoor concerts are as crowded as the 4 train at 8:35 AM. Most of my time outside during the summer is spent trailing along sidewalks rancid with the smell of overheated garbage.

Fall, though. If summer is the sexy blond cheerleader, all beachy waves and sunkissed cleavage, fall is the shy beauty in Mary Janes at the back of the classroom who knows the words to every Simon & Garfunkel song. Fall is pure magic.

I don't know if it's just a legacy of 20-odd years of back-to-school rituals, but fall has always felt like a time of possibility to me. A time of new beginnings. It's always been my favorite season, and so I have, especially in recent years, stacked it in its own favor. I've planned weekends upstate with friends and family, frolicking under maple leaves and picking apples from trees and guzzling cider in front of the fireplace. I got engaged in October and married in October, and now all of my anniversaries will be in October too, which just adds one more fun landmark to an already celebration-rich season. The onset of each fall launches me into a frenzy of baking and cooking and entertaining: pies and stews and all those rich, hearty things I am normally far too lazy to cook during the rest of the year.

But before the fall season actually hits, there's one of my favorite days of the year--the first day toward the end of summer that feels like fall. The day when, after weeks of plasma-swamp humidity and sweat-stained T-shirts, I walk outside my apartment into air that has the crisp bite of a Granny Smith apple and tastes every bit as refreshing. "Hang in there," the breeze whispers, "I'm coming back soon."

Today was that day. And it brought with it that wonderful, familiar sensation of promise. This year, fall will see me completing the edits to get my first novel ready for publication. Hard to imagine a more compelling feeling of new-beginning than that.