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.