Autumn is in the air here in Sicily. Mornings are brisk and foggy and evenings require multiple layers. Strangely though, from the crocuses popping up all over, it seems the garden hasn’t gotten the message.

Best things right now are: juice-dripping candy-sweet plump and delicate persimmons littering the trees in the orchard; air that smells of overturned soil and fermenting grapes; smiles and waves from local folks who now feel much less like strangers and more like neighbors.

I’ve not been writing as much as I’d like to be or taking as many pictures as I should. I sometimes worry as moments pass throughout the day that I’m already forgetting them. Why aren’t I keeping a better written record? But there’s always this contention between experiencing things fully as they are happening and taking yourself out of the moment to record them. With only a handful of days left in October, I wish for a photographic memory.