My Lifelong Love Affair
I think I felt the first stirrings of my lifelong love affair with autumn when I was just five years old, some sixty-three years ago. My mother, my brother and I went apple picking at a pick-your-own apple orchard in the area. Afterwards we went to a peaceful, heavily wooded park nearby and had ourselves a little picnic. The air was crisp yet comfortable. The day was sunny but neither hot nor humid. The leaves that were still in the trees were showing off with their annual color display, shining in the golden October sunlight. It was a day of apples as we sunk our teeth into those crunchy, tart Winesap apples. We savored some of the fresh-pressed apple cider that we had just bought. We ate our baloney sandwiches that we had packed. Later, we watched the geese in formation overhead, honking as they flew to somewhere else. My brother told us a story he had heard about an old house that was supposed to be haunted that was in the area that we lived. Mom got the football out of the trunk and my brother and I practiced “going out for passes.” Even though I had the pea brain of a five-year old, I very distinctly remember the first stirrings of love within me for the season known as autumn.
The Four Seasons
Summer has its definite moments…….swimming, vacation from school, amusement parks, baseball, hiking, barbeques, bicycling, a cold beer under a shady tree. Spring has its unique “the cold and snow are finally over and the daffodils and tulips are doing their thing” vibe. Winter has Christmas, New Years Day, snowballs, snowmen, hot chocolate, a steaming bowl of chili, freedom from bugs and flies, egg nog. There is that something about autumn however, that has always captured my heart.
Humans have a tendency to get tired of the same old thing after awhile (types of food, jobs, relationships, etc.). I never remember a time however when my heart did not jump a little when “autumn entered the room” so to speak.
Autumn – Vibrant Yet Calming
Autumn feels to me like….well, like “me”. It has the ability to enter into me and seep down into every crack and crevice of my being. It has a truly potent vibrancy yet at the same time, a wonderful calming presence. Autumn feels like “coming home”. It is a feeling that is much more understandable if you feel it rather than attempt to describe it.
At a job that I worked at for twenty years, I worked at a desk near the water cooler. In that area that I worked, I was the only one there so I was able to have my radio on without bothering anyone else. A man who worked on the other side of the building came over to the water cooler one day to fill up his mug with water. At that time, a piece by Bach was playing on my radio. As he filled up his mug, he said to me, “I guess that is real relaxing music for you.” I responded, “Oh yeah, but at the same time, totally invigorating.” He just smiled in response but the look on his face spelled out “Well it’s sure not my cup of tea but I guess different strokes for different folks.” I do believe that is what it comes down to and for me, autumn is in perfect attunement with my inner wiring.
The Sweet Spot
Perhaps the specialness of autumn has something to do with the getting away from the frenetic comings and goings of summertime, the constant mowing of lawns, the planning and attending of different events and the overall “sweatiness of summer”. It is that sweet spot when the hot and sticky days of summer are over and the muddy, rainy months of spring are still far off. It could be any combination of things including, what to me is the grandaddy of all annual holidays…….Thanksgiving. I really do try my best to practice thanksgiving on a daily basis (not always succeeding). I do “get it” that gratitude is beneficial to my personal well-being. Autumn has the honor of hosting that one holiday where all are invited to vary from their normal routine and simply feel gratitude.
Stanley Got It Right
Published in the 1983 issue of Readers Digest magazine was that eighteen word poem written by Stanley Horowitz that has a good chance of being found wherever the joys of autumn are mentioned on the internet. It goes as follows: “Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all” That sure sums it up better than anything that I could think up. Autumn could be appropriately called, “The Total Package”. I was born in the autumn and I hope when it is my time to die that it will likewise be in autumn. I am of the same mind as the great nineteenth century English author, George Eliot, who wrote, “Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the Earth seeking the successive autumns.”
