Admiring Brunswick’s November beauty, thankful 3 times over | Column

Leaves are scattered on the surface of Mere Brook in Brunswick. (Courtesy of Sandy Stott)

BENCHED

Three, sometimes five, times a week, I find myself walking in the Brunswick Town Commons. Other Commons-walkers may also have noted the recent appearance of a fourth bench offering a seat for rest, contemplation, or awaiting the simple emergence of bird voices that come on five minutes after a person stops moving and settles in the woods.

A couple of years ago, when the first three of these benches appeared, I sent a query, and then thanks, to conservationist Jym St. Pierre, a member of the Town Commons Committee at the time. I learned a bit about these repurposed, peg-fastened benches. I also named them (quietly) St. Pierre Benches (even as I knew they were the gifts of many). So now, the number risen to four, I send on general thanks to our Parks and Recreation Department, and (quietly) to the new bench’s namesake.

My favorite bench is in mid-Commons at what I call the Triangle of Confusion — three paths converge there, raising the question I sometimes field while sitting there: Which way should I go? Perhaps you, too, think through that question often. This bench is a best seat for it.

VISITING EDDY

On a mid-October walk, and near its end, I drop into the nearby Mere Brook gully to check on the water level after our very dry summer and to see the seasonal outcry of colors. It is beauty time at the brook: light ricocheting wildly, blue sky peering down through the treetops just to see the display.

It seems odd, even a bit presumptuous, to name this patch of water. But there, close to the bank where I stand, is Eddy.

Leaves, often pale yellow, float downstream, speckling the dark, transparent waters with light. The leaves shine in contrast. They could be little footlights, spotlights facing up.

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At a 90-degree stream bend, the current takes its usual course along the outer side of the curve, and there it encounters the partial block of a sunken log, which shunts the surface water to my right; the deeper water flows beneath the wood. And so the upper water begins a lazy spin, finding and re-finding its upstream self. And in its slow circle — diameter around 2 feet — the water captures a collection of yellow leaves. A wheel of light. I have found, re-found, Eddy.

Eddy’s face shifts constantly, so many leaf-eyes nudging into surface space, wobbling slightly atop the water. And every so often some yellow leaves align as a smile that spins then slowly up to become a lined forehead. Ears, varying noses, a mouth, Eddy is a jostle of personalities.

Is it any wonder then, that I begin to talk to Eddy?

A day later I return. Eddy is still there, although a blush of red leaves have entered the circle.

The light in the trees in late fall is especially captivating. (Courtesy of Sandy Stott)

SAY IT SLANT — TAWNY TIMES

Every fall, I await my favorite month. November nears. I revel, as we all do, in the the colorful trek through October, but then the muted, tawny landscape rises, showing its bones and stones, its definition. Bouldery land becomes the main show in its ridges and furrows; even the trees seem to attend, peering down without their expressive leaves, their rustling vocabulary, as if to say, “When will it be leaf time again?” “Later,” the land answers, and the trees go stoic, mimic their stony friends.

Then there is the fresh cold. On some days it sharpens the air and the edges of every blade of dried grass. It even calms our aggressive interloper, the tick. Walking in fields becomes low risk, long sighted, lovely.

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But November’s show, its big act, is its light. The year’s round has no light like November light.

I got my first look at oncoming November’s light in early October (though a friend points out that August is first to offer slant-light’s harbinger of fall). It was a clear day, ebbing, and we were at one of our region’s many Land’s Ends, with water stretching to our east, south and west. We’d not seen a cloud all day; the sky had been faultless blue … still was. Except, to our west-southwest a pencil-thin mustache of cloud drew a line across the sun as it neared the far ridges and water. The land darkened. I noticed an involuntary hesitation to breathe out. The world stilled, the few people nearby quieted. Inhale … hold breath … still.

Then the sun dropped a few more degrees, the mustache became a toupee, which, for reasons unknown, seemed to return us all to voice. Vermillion sunset stretched across the sky. Then darkness edged out from the bushes along the ground. But the light held sway for minutes more.

Sandy Stott is a Brunswick resident, chair of the town’s Conservation Commission and its Steering Committee for the Restoration of Mere Brook, a board member of Free the Andro, and a member of Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust’s board of directors. He writes for the AMC’s Appalachia and a variety of publications. He may be reached at [email protected].

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Tagged: fall 2026