A love letter to autumn
Autumn. It is a season of contradictions. On one hand, it is the harvest season; it is fullness and bountiful goodness, a reward for hard labor. On the other hand, once the world has reached full ripeness, there is nothing left but rot. The leaves fall, the pumpkins cave in upon themselves, and the apple orchard smells like a brewery. But, much like life itself, while it lasts, it is pure magic.
Autumn is my favorite season. I was born on the cusp of fall in September. September means a return to school. It’s a month of great change. Summer is still beating down its heat when the month begins. The memories made over the summer still linger, but they’re fading like our suntans as we sit at our desks in school and we look longingly at the playground equipment we assault just twice a day instead of the whole outdoors all day long we had just weeks ago.
The month ends, and we fill bleachers to watch football games, blankets on our laps as the sun sets and the big lights come on. Our thirst for hot cocoa and hunger for cinnamon-dusted desserts overtakes us as the intoxicating season increasingly erases all reason.
My memories are linked to the weather. It’s funny, as time goes on, memories are all you really have. The people and sometimes the places are gone, yet the memories remain. I remember playing football with my friend Geoff on our front lawn. I remember washing dishes and listening to Neil Diamond’s “September Morn.” I remember the leaves ablaze and filling our big picture window downtown in Bowling Green, Ohio, the cicadas among the leaves I kicked as I walked the sidewalks of McCook, Neb., the cross country runs after school when I picked some poor soul’s apples from their front yard and sucked the juices, the little vacations to Ludington, Mich., the firepit I tended with perhaps improper fascination and Nebraska football on the radio and deer hunting on my mind.
I now live in a place that sees two seasons: tourist season and winter. This year, I put away my jacket June 1. I was wearing a jacket in August, and it looks like it will stay out of the closet. Some years we have good autumns. Some years they are gone in the blink of an eye. I miss having real seasons. I miss having a garden and taking the afternoon off to drive down to the river and take pictures just to hold the season still. But autumn moves fast.
The leaves come down with the rain and the wind just as fast as they change color. Here there are aspen and birch, nearly identical trees that flare a bright yellow in fall. There are oak trees farther down in elevation, and, of course, many other varieties even farther down. The oaks hold onto their leaves with tenacity. When spring returns, the buds force the oak leaves to finally fall. I like the idea of a tree that never relinquishes its leaves in fall. For that reason, if I were a tree, I would be an oak.
Autumn is beautiful like no other season. The air changes from stiflingly hot and humid to crisp and refreshing. Of course, it is a harbinger of winter, but we forgive all of that while our collective breath is taken away by its beauty. Even the various grasses we regard as common in spring and summer turn colors we can’t even describe in autumn. There are reds, ochres, mustards, siennas, umbers, beiges and browns — each mixed with care on the Master’s wide palette.
Here, the smell of wood smoke begins to fill the air. Whatever the hailstorms or chilly nights or hungry deer didn’t decimate now fall to the blight that comes at night. The frosts come early here. Time marches on, and there is a reminder in that — we are all finite.
But there are many pleasures in this world meant to be enjoyed while we’re here: Apple cider and pumpkin carving; Halloween candy and pumpkin spice everything; school portraits and cross country meets, football and volleyball games; cuddling on the couch under fuzzy blankets and flannel sheets on the bed; wearing warm hats and walking a shelterbelt, hoping to flush some pheasants; food in the fridge, freezer and pantry against the hollowness of winter; and the crackling of wood-burning stoves and fireplaces. To me, autumn is a physical manifestation of God’s love. And it’s a warning that leaner times are coming and everything must come to an end. So be thankful now for what you have.
Autumn contains my favorite holiday: Thanksgiving. It gets in the way of corporate marketing efforts these days. If they could, I think they’d erase it or move it up a few weeks to make way for the more bankable holiday, Christmas. There is nothing to Thanksgiving but what its name says, really. It’s simply a chance to take time out for family and be thankful. It’s a time of food and fullness, and so it sums up autumn for me.
Each season is different. You’re welcome to your favorite one, or maybe you love them all, but autumn is mine. But I know it wouldn’t exist without the changing of the seasons, so I thank God for the perpetual pace of time. And for everything autumn.
