The Spirit of Autumn

 

Copyright © 2024

by Ralph F. Couey

Images and Written Content

"Autumn is more the season of the soul than of nature."

--Fredrich Nietzsche

"Everyone must  take time to sit and watch the leaves turn."

--Elizabeth Lawrence

The air is warm, but dry, a comfortable pleasant kind of day.  The sky has taken on that vivid blue that contrasts so beautifully with the changing leaves.  The breeze is soft, yet with that unmistakable nip of October.  It is a fine autumn day.

I walked across a meadow through the tawny grass and entered the treeline.  After a short distance, I stopped and inhaled deeply.  It was there; that scent that is the hallmark of fall.  Yes, I know its just dead leaves I'm smelling, but there's something else, something undefinable but still manages to trigger the emotions within me that can only be summoned this time of year.

I am standing amidst a forest of trees that have been wrapped in brilliant golds and vivid reds.  Around me is silence, broken only the sound of rustling leaves as the squirrels forage for their winter provender.  Now and then, the breeze rattles the branches and dislodges a few more leaves.  They flutter gracefully as they fall, before adding to the thickening carpet on the ground.

Slowly, aimlessly I move, my shoes kicking around the leafy ground cover.  That sound, so familiar, so evocative, so comforting awakens memories, some just a year old, others that reach all the way back to a distant childhood.  I suppose that if the ticking of my life's clock had a sound, it would have to be the swishing of leaves in the fall.

Summer has most times been a season to be endured.  Heat and humidity is the bane of my existence, its oppressiveness weighing on my like a wet wool blanket.  Energy and stamina desert me on those days.  The nights bring little relief, the velvety air jealously holding on to the moisture within.  

Then one day, about three weeks into September, the air clears and dries.  The sky shifts from the milky, hazy look of summer to a sharp, vivid blue.  I am reawakened, the old vitality returns as does my joy.

I guess for me there are two falls, the one that reliably shows up on the calendar.  Then there is the climatic one which announces its arrival with delightfully cool weather and the marvelous transition of the trees.  Suddenly, I remember how much fun it is to wear sweaters, jackets, and wool hats.

There is an urgency to this season.  Animals scurry around preparing for winter.  In the sky, migratory birds begin to gather for test flights before heading south.  Even humans feel it.  Farmer begin the harvest, racing against the first frosts.  Stores and shops fill with supplies for the back-to-school crowd.  Kids, though mourning the loss of that glorious summer indolence, feel an excited anticipation for the new school year, though they'd never admit it out loud.  

Even sports change.  Summer is baseball and golf, sports which are not governed by the clock.  But fall is football, and eventually basketball and hockey, all that live and die by the clock.  The short season makes every game serious and vital.  A 4-game losing streak in baseball is just a bad weekend in Chicago, but it can wreck a football season.  Everything is played and lived at a frenetic do-or-die pace.  And yet, with all that, there is still a joy to this time of year.  Looking ahead, we see barreling at us that time we call "The Holidays" when families gather and everyone seems happier.

While my passion for autumn seems more climate driven, it is really that overall sense of awakening joy and the sheer energy of the time of year that has always made this my favorite season.  My love of spring is similar, but it is a much more gentle time, slower-paced.  Autumn has always been energy, excitement driven by the awareness that life is also ticking away.  I am driven to go to the forest, far away from noise and clamor.  There is a peace there that exists for me nowhere else.  I am transfixed by what I see and feel there.  I do enjoy hiking, but sometimes it's enough to just sit on a stump and just...be.

I want to preserve in my memory all that my senses perceive.  The cool air, the smells, the sounds, the colors...but mostly the sense of peace and contentment which fills me to repletion.  It if were possible to arrange my last moment in this life, it would have to be such a moment.  Filled with joy and peace, I could pass willingly to the eternal rest that I know awaits me.  

Such happiness is so terribly rare and when it arrives, it must be embraced and cherished, preserved in the vault of memories within the heart.  From there it can be recalled and relived, always a balm to an aching soul.

Living in Hawai'i has created an ache for this time of year.  Here, some form of summer exists all year 'round.  The average high temperature between January and July only differs by six degrees.  You could record the weather forecast, run it all year long and still be right about 60% of the time.  I miss the change of seasons, and what has become an annual pilgrimage to the mainland always raises my anticipation, as the time there is finite and always ends too soon.  But even these short visits will always fill me to the brim with my autumn joy. 

This Time of Year, This Time of LIfe

The Autumn of Days

The Autumn of Life

Copyright © 2024

by Ralph F. Couey

Images and written content

We're hitting the road again, back to Virginia to spend time with our son and his family.  And of course, I get to spend time with the fall foliage and cool, perhaps cold temperatures that mark that passage into my favorite time of year.  In the mainland, anyway.  .

At this point in life, I've found more and more how important family is.  Of course time passes.  Grandchildren who were once young grow up and move on.  Our "children" now sport bits of grey hair, and begin to complain about aches and pains.  But that bond of blood, unbreakable as ever, continues to hold us together.  

I've always held a longer view of life, so I see the perspective of generations in my family.  My exploration of genealogy has taken me back to 10th century France and 17th century Ireland.  When I look through that long list of names, I often wonder how they viewed the future.  For most of them, it was the continuing birth of children that kept clans alive, flourishing, and powerful in those turbulent times.  

But these days are different.  The future, a constantly moving target, is uncertain at best.  Our grandchildren will face challenges we could never dream of, economic, social, political, perhaps environmental.  The wisdom of the aged in their lives can't provide a template, or even a vague sketch of how to navigate those expectedly stormy seas.  They will have to rely on their experience, knowledge, skills, and yes, sheer toughness all of which I dearly hope we've provided them.  This is uppermost in my mind because our oldest has gone to college in far-off New York.  We have a great deal of faith and confidence in her, but we all remember what that time of life was like, how hard it was to be away from home and family, learning for the first time who to trust and how much.  For the first time in her life, there's no safety net, no sanctuary when things truly go south.  Intellectually, I know this is a necessary experience, a required rite of passage to full adulthood.  Life is indifferent.  It is not what you allow it to do to you, but what you do to it that will forge a path of success.  Doesn't make it any easier to be so far away.

The others are also growing up.  Fast, too fast.  Our two grandkids in Colorado are blossoming into powerfully creative individuals.  They are strong, directed, and confident and there are great things ahead for them.  But at some point, they too will leave the nest and undertake their own flight.  And those of us left behind will be on pins and needles watching from afar as their stories unfold.  The younger two in Virginia also are striding forward in confident assuredness.  I still don't know what they will end up doing or being, but I'm pretty sure they'll be in charge.

The three in California are something of a collection of miracles.  The older two were born autistic, and one needed open heart surgery shortly after birth.  The oldest we thought might have to live in a group home.  But he is one his way to college, with a plan to work on, work with, and perhaps design Formula One race cars.  All three of them are blossoming out of what was a cruelly difficult childhood.  They are tough beyond words, and nothing will get in their way.

I look at all of them with pride, and gratitude.  I was not very good at being a father, being unable to draw that barrier between career and family.  But my kids survived it, and learned from those experiences.  They are successful professionally, and are deeply involved in their kids' lives.  I hate regrets, but I wish I would have been better.

I don't try to judge my life, good or bad, because it makes me sad.  And at this point in life, kinda useless.  When I pass from this life at some point in the relatively near future, there won't be any statues or buildings with my name on them.  I won't have cured cancer, the common cold, or brought world peace.  I don't command princely wealth or exercise worldly power or influence.  If that were the sole yardstick, then I've been a failure.  

But I've also learned from my offspring that there are far more important ways to measure a life.  I love, and have been loved.  I've been a friend, and received friendship.  I've given and received respect.  I've  enjoyed the exercise of gifts and talents, particularly writing and public speaking, that has given me so much joy.  And perhaps when I look at my grandkids and what they can and undoubtedly will do with their lives, the future, sometimes bleak, now has a distinctly rosy, optimistic glow.  Perhaps I can look at that and surmise that some good is here to pass along to the future.

The dreams we have as children are almost never fulfilled in life.  Because of the experience and wisdom we acquire along the way, that context alters our expectations.  What we loved to do at age 7 or 8 will be very different from what we eventually choose.  I tell people to be patient as this sorts itself out.  I did not find out what I wanted to do when I grew up until I reached the tender age of 40, and proved to be far removed from the baseball player/astronaut I wanted to be as a kid.  The only consistent thing in life is change, and everyone must be ready for whatever comes their way, and be nimble enough to keep our footing as we shift course.

There was a time when five years from now was just that:  five years.  I am 69, and am well aware that my future will be considerable shorter than my past.  Another important thing I have learned is not to just exist from day to aimless day.  But live!  And live with passion, fervor, and joy!  And so what if nobody outside my family and friends remembers me?

Because at the end, I can be assured that it has been one hell of a ride.

Gut Punch...Or Perhaps Not

 

Happy Days...

Copyright ©2024

by Ralph F. Couey

"Life belongs to the living

and he who lives

must be prepared for change."

--Johann Wolfgang von Goeth

Everyone, I think, is familiar with the feeling of shock and dismay when normality is blown up by the unexpected.  The common reaction is "No!  This isn't happening!"  We push back in that moment, trying to evade what has befallen us.  But no amount of denial changes what has happened.  It must be faced, even embraced as a new reality.

I've been dealing with some health issues, mostly those attendant with aging.  I won't burden you with the details, as there is really nothing more boring than listening to an old person complain about their aches and pains.  But in April, my doctor, out of the blue, administered a memory test to me in his office.  Mainly due to fatigue, I bombed it miserably.  That was hard enough, but what he said next was a total gut punch.  

Dementia.

I was shocked and dismayed.  And scared.  The one thing about getting old that I feared the most was mental impairment.  I could have better dealt with the loss of a limb, but not my mind.  Everything I am, that I've ever been, that I could ever be resides there in that incredible organ inside my heard.  Without that, we are all just empty husks.

Over the last year I've noticed a tendency for short term memory dropouts, silly things like looking for car keys that are already in my pocket, or getting stuck in writing, desperately searching for that perfect word or phrase.  I've forgotten appointments, or gone on the wrong days.  I'll re-ask a question posed just minutes before.  But that time was filled with a lot of stress, mostly work-related at my last job.  Once I moved on, a lot of that went away.  But I was still worried.

In the months that followed, some other things happened, that indicated to me that this wasn't the disaster I originally thought.

I had an appointment with a neurologist and after hearing about the diagnosis, he administered a memory test.  I Aced It.  After some discussion, he put my problems down to something called "cognitive impairment."  Not sure what that means, but it doesn't seem to be dementia.  I was relieved. 

 Now, in the time since, there have still been occasional dropouts, but I continue to give all my tour presentations, all told almost two-and-a-half hours of memorized material.  I am finding though that if I get distracted, I can lose my place, and picking up the loose string can take a minute.  So focus becomes absolutely essential. When I'm driving, I always know where I am and where I'm bound.  I remember my past in detail.  I've always had difficulty with remembering people's names, so that doesn't worry me all that much.  All my appointments and obligations are on my phone's calendar.  I spend time (maybe too much time) playing various word games on my phone.  I still read voraciously, and I still write, although that's limited by having only 24 hours in each day.  Walking about the ship every day, climbing up and down ladders (stairs to you landlubbers), I log about 3 miles, so I'm getting my physical exercise.  

One thing I am very focused on is the amount of sleep I get at night.  On days that I get 6 hours or less, things don't go so well.  But over 6 hours, and better still, 7 to 8 hours, things are terrific.  I'm going to bed early, usually by 8:30 pm, and am able to fall asleep quickly.  I still get up a couple of times a night (curse you, prostate!) but can go back to sleep quickly.  My son Robbie got me one of those wrist tracker things (Whoop) which tracks my sleep patterns, as well as the amount of exercise and stress during the day, so I'm always aware of how I'm doing in those departments.

The future has always been an unknown, as there is still no reliable way to predict for its inevitable twists and turns.  But in hard times, I always fall back on the best lesson from my days hiking the Appalachian Trail:  The only thing you can do when standing at the bottom of a long, steep hill is to quit complaining and just climb the doggone thing.  Even on that terrain, I eventually reached the summit.