The accompanying video is not a reading of this essay. It is a separate creation.
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The show only lasted about ten days, and it’s over now.
I’m talking about this year’s fall foliage along the Gila River in southwestern New Mexico. I‘ve been here in this season before, but for some reason I was more entranced this year than in the past. Was it more beautiful or was I just paying more attention? I don’t know, but I did make a special effort to spend time at various places along the river, walking among the yellow Cottonwoods and the orange Sycamores.
The most memorable afternoon was when I went to a hiking trail in the Gila National Forest that I’d never visited before. The weather was perfect: cloudless, mid ‘70s and a calm breeze. The sun is low in the sky at this time of year and slanted through the foliage to great visual effect. It was so beautiful I felt like I was tripping.
On the way back, I looked back down into the valley, and was struck by the shimmering quality of the scene. Tolkien’s description of the River Silverlode came into my head: "running on and away into the lower lands, until it was lost in a golden haze."
That “golden haze” marked Lothlorien, also known as just Lorien, home of Galadriel, and the most elvish place in Middle Earth in the Third Age, where time flowed at a different rate than the rest of the world. Lothlorien was famous for its Mallorn trees, whose foliage was golden yellow.
Tolkien’s books are my favorite books. I’ve read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion dozens of times. His descriptions of nature are an inspiration for my own writing, though I’ve definitely never achieved his level of lyricism and sublimity.
I took lots of photos on my hikes. A few do evoke something of the real feeling of the experience for me and I share them here. These are the colors as captured by my camera (an Olympus “Tough” F2.0). I did not boost the saturation or use any filters, though I did apply standard color correction with the RGB levels. In other words, what I’m presenting here is as “as is” as possible with my equipment. I hope you enjoy!
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