2 weeks Ago
Autumn could easily fill me with disappointment. Summer’s glory is winding down. The Northern Hemisphere is turning its back on the sun.
Days grow shorter. There’s a nip in the air. And yet autumn possesses its own unique magic.
I have a theory — I’ve never seen it substantiated anywhere, but so what? — that your favorite season is the one that includes your birthday. You associate it with gifts and birthday cake and being the center of attention. So it’s understandable that people such as my wife, who has an October birthday, would consider fall the most beautiful time of year.
For the same reason, as a Gemini, I’m wedded to spring. The Earth feels as if it’s being reborn. The budding light green leaves on our maples and oaks radiate promise.
You can shed your winter clothes. School will soon be out for the summer. What’s not to like? Yet there’s something about autumn, even though those same leaves are now littering the lawn and school is back in session.
If I might digress for a moment, not that I haven’t already: One of the hallmarks of a reasonably charmed life is that its cadences continue to mimic those of the average 8-year-old — not that 8-year-olds necessarily have it easy. Like them, I work hard in the winter and spring, slack off in summer and return to the grind in September. I was also abetted by the fact that when I thought I’d left childhood behind I had children of my own.
After coming to the rude awakening that if they’ve got to be at school at an uncivilized hour it’s your solemn parental responsibility to be awake, too, to get them out the door, I felt lucky that I retained a tenuous connection to the school year and everything that’s associated with it: that sense of September renewal, school vacations and spring fever. But as I travel further away from my own childhood and now theirs, the effort to cling to those circadian rhythms becomes ever more challenging. I’m hopeful that our newly minted grandchildren and their budding lives will help re-caulk those seasonal changes, but I’m not overly optimistic.
It remains to be seen how connected I’ll feel to their school years since they don’t live with us. I might find myself grasping at straws — or rather No. 2 pencils.
Autumn doesn’t require a connection to youth to derive maximum enjoyment, though I suspect if you’re anything like me you might occasionally look up at November’s brooding clouds, fold your shoulders against the wind and be reminded of braving the elements to play afterschool sports. We’re fortunate in this part of the world that we have distinctive seasons, even though climate change seems to be doing a number on our expectations. Spring comes early and sometimes winter feels as if it doesn’t come at all.
But that’s all the more reason to prize autumn. It still seems emphatic, unequivocal. The leaves have started to fall from the trees — there’s no surer sign that change is afoot.
Days grow shorter. It’s reassuring to know that everything isn’t a function of climate change and human folly; that cosmic forces remain indifferent to us and our reckless behavior. And while summer heat might linger longer than it once did, nobody is going to argue that it’s pool weather.
I was going to say that fall is an indoors season, but that’s untrue. It expertly weaves the pleasures of nature and home as no other time of year does. You can finally take walks in the woods without fear of being eaten alive — though ticks seem largely ignorant of the calendar — while knowing that the shelter of home, a cup of tea and a warm bath await your return.
Circling back to the notion that your birthday is your favorite time of year — feel free to disagree — I suspect that the seasons are imprinted on our souls in ways that we barely grasp. One of my earliest memories involves walking through Central Park in the late afternoon with my babysitter and my brother Johnny in his baby carriage as it starts to snow. I wasn’t more than 3 years old at the time.
The lights of the apartments along Central Park West had just started to blink on, and I knew that a warm bath and dinner awaited. That sense of coziness, of being swaddled and protected, is what I associate with autumn. These days I have to do most of my own swaddling.
And I’ve come up with adult embellishments. I’ve expanded my evening repertoire to include not just a bath and dinner but also an interlude between the two that typically involves the consumption of single malt scotch while gazing into the fireplace. A definition of mental health might be the ability to fully embrace the season, no matter which one it happens to be.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against winter or summer. They’re both great.
Spring hits you over the head with its novelty but summer’s majesty is just as profound as winter’s. Yet autumn requires that we contribute something to its appreciation. It’s not automatic.
And that effort probably tells us more about who we are and what we’re made of than any other time of year..
