Okay, after this morning’s gloom, doom, and general bad-moodiness, let’s try something different.
Walking into my office this morning, I saw the trees were beginning to turn. The locusts right in front of the office, and the maples off to the side, beginning to be dusted with lemon yellow amidst the green.
Driving in, I felt a slight coolth to the air, even though the radio was nattering about warmer-than-usual weather for a few days.
In back, a couple of cottonwood branches have turned lemondrop, and the Japanese maple is tipped in brownish red.
It’s autumn, one of my two favorite seasons here.
Growing up in California, what I always heard most from immigrants out of the rest of the Lower 48 was wailing and moaning about the lack of seasons. They always followed up by noting that they enjoyed the year-round warmth and sunshine, but there was always as well a certain prettier-than-thou wistfulness about spring and autumn.
They were right.
In the fall, things slowly go to sleep. The days become cool and crisp. The leaves turn glorious colors, then fall away. It’s a time for getting ready for the winter, blowing out sprinklers, planting bulbs for the spring, and enjoying the change.
I like winter, too. The California Boy enjoys the snow here, except when I have to drive in it with my feather-weight Saturn.
But autumn is special. Colors. A bit of meditative “things are changing, things are dying, this too shall pass” about it. Time goes by, and you can see it happening.
Spring is my favorite, of course. As bits and pieces begin to leaf out, to bloom. The zillions of bulbs we’ve planted over the past several years begin burst forth, daffodil yellows and iris purples and whatever else we plugged in there.
Still, I do like the autumn.
I think we can use the change.