Favorite Season
Fall is our favorite season. Not just because the trees put on their colors, nor because we get to kick our way through the leaf litter on our hikes, nor because the winds bring tangy smells and raspy whispers through the forest, nor because the pestersome bugs are mostly gone, nor because it is cool enuf to have a camp fire, nor because the febrile fecundity of nature is finally checked. But having said all of that, I’m not sure I can put into words exactly why we favor fall as we do.
I suppose some of it has to do with childhood autumns. Celebrations like Halloween and Thanksgiving come in the fall, with their treats and foods and family visits. The anticipation of Xmas swelled in earnest then. L’s birthday is in the fall — a happy day for Pablo when she was born.
But the savor of fall, I think, has more to do with the reminder of how limited it all is. The high frolics of spring and summer are finished now. Fall is a gentle hand on the shoulder. Enjoy this time before the cold clamp of winter comes down. The transition will be measured and will bring its own compensations, but make no mistake, winter is on its way. And so we take extra effort to enjoy our hours in the woods. We linger in the comfy chairs soaking in the weak sunlight that comes our way. Our hikes are longer because we don’t have to contend with the heat. Plans for Roundrock begin to hatch because nature seems conquerable again. Chores are taken up willingly, in part because they keep us warm.
I don’t think L and I are quite into the autumn of our lives. Certainly there is no snow on the roof, so to speak. And I’m not sure how these things would be measured anyway. It is easy, perhaps too easy, to draw lessons about life from observations of the natural world. The old “sermons in stones” ethic of Emerson and Thoreau that it is now fashionable to disdain.
But we are natural beings. We are in it. We are of it. And eventually we will return to it. So now in the fall, more than ever, we realize this is the time to live it.
September 22nd, 2005 at 5:23 am
I guess he is going to tell us that the laptop computer is a plastic version of a maple leaf in fall.
Be that as it may; a delicate and reverberating post. Makes me want to sing:
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hand I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall
Ahhh…
September 22nd, 2005 at 7:05 am
Actually, it’s supposed to represent an apple under a tree – harvest time and all that!
September 22nd, 2005 at 7:22 am
LOL, I totally missed the “apple under the tree” thing. Too much snow on my roof, evidently.
September 22nd, 2005 at 8:43 am
Apple under the trees? Hedge apples? Ah, the artistic expression. Lucky it is not mandatory that we all “get it”, or your readership might shrink. Thanks for setting us straight. Always enjoy your writing, albeit with my own feeble interpretations.
September 22nd, 2005 at 8:51 am
I’ve had snow on my roof since I was in my twenties, but you probably knew that already!
Fall is also my favorite season, and I loved reading Pablo’s take on it. Around here though it’s also a season for caution, and time to break out the orange-wear!
Where I work, people seem to correlate me with orange, for the three or four months where orange is a survival mechanism. Several co-workers have offered me old orange jerseys, t-shirts, and so forth. Considering how hard it is to find orange, and how I don’t particularly care for the prescribed vests, I always accept with thanks.
September 22nd, 2005 at 10:18 am
Nice Pablo. I’m a big fan of fall too. I love those first evenings when I have to pull on a sweater. The cool weather is invigorating after the days and days of summer heat. I love the colors too– the angle of the light through the trees, the late blooming flowers, the harvest.
I didn’t catch the apple under the tree metaphor, but it’s a good thing you’re not Newton!
September 22nd, 2005 at 12:36 pm
very lovely post. too bad we won’t be having a campfire for thanksgiving…
September 22nd, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Very nice essay pablo. I will not add any perfunctory or pithy comments about fall or my favorite seasons to the many that have been offered already. I have come late to the party and all the good stuff has been devoured. I shall try and come to the table early next time. Again, this was a trully nice post.
September 22nd, 2005 at 3:01 pm
I’m with the farmer, this was very good.
I did not realize it was fall…it was 90 at 6 pm last night with a humidity of 93% earlier in the day.
September 22nd, 2005 at 5:56 pm
Now I get it. Apple Mac.
September 22nd, 2005 at 9:00 pm
That’s about the best bit of writing I’ve read in awhile. And…I”m well into William Least Heat-Moon’s second tome, “PrairyErth”, which is about 200 pages too long.
He devotes a fair amount of discussion to the hedge apple, which I think is in the left hand of the photo there…….or, it’s a round rock!
Fall is also my favorite time of year, but I could only hope to express my infatuation with the season as well as you have penned.
You are also a role model – - – a man who unabashedly loves his wife. Nice.
September 25th, 2005 at 6:14 pm
I liked “febrile fecundity”. Nice descriptive phrase!
January 14th, 2006 at 6:15 am
[...] Which is Pablo’s favorite season? Yes, you had two correct answers in the choices. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which they are. [...]