October is a teasing month, no longer summer, but not quite winter. The leaves are just beginning to change and, in case we forget what is coming next, pumpkins are everywhere, grinning at us with sly anticipation. Right after Halloween, appropriately enough, come another grotesque festival from the dark side, the elections, heralded by weeks of breathless predictions and opinion polls, all of them wrong. After that, if we survive, we barely have time to prepare for Thanksgiving, and the Holidays, and hunker down for a few freezing Nor'easters to round off the season.
If you live in a popular summer place, winter is an absolute transformation. When we were staying in the south of France a few autumns ago, October came like a sudden scene change in a theater. All the visitors and tourists went home. The roads north were jammed with millions of sun-worshippers, returning reluctantly to their damp and chilly everyday lives. There was an almost audible collective sigh of relief from the people who actually live in the south year-round. Many restaurants and shops reduced their hours or closed entirely. It was a true autumn – not just a date on the calendar but an economic, spiritual and social transformation. People would live differently from now until the first signs of spring.
It’s the same in the Hamptons or any summer resort that has this chameleon character – in season or out of season. But here in the suburbs of the temperate zone, where suntanned holidaymakers are rarely seen, we try to pretend it's not happening. A few lucky sunbirds flutter off in the direction of Florida, unable or unwilling to face meteorological reality. The rest of us, anchored by our houses and credit limits, continue our lives in a lower key. Chill days and chillier nights mean that the outside world is no longer appealing. But the heating system keeps our bodies at an even 72 degrees and we search out the winter clothes so hopefully mothballed in the basement what seems like only a few weeks ago
The fruits and vegetables in the supermarket scarcely change. We have done our best to eliminate the natural seasons, leaving only the commercial seasons. I suppose we are trying to convince ourselves, with some success, that we are not actually living on a ball of dirt spinning and wobbling in an infinite freezing void, but in a kind of huge indoor shopping mall open 24/7. Only a few farmers, vineyard owners and mariners study the sky and work according to the seasons, and they are obviously not getting the message.
In autumn we slow down, read more, watch more TV, exercise less, and eat much, much more as we prepare ourselves for the food challenges of the coming months. That’s why autumn is called “Fall” in America – the fall from dietary discipline begins here, with the first batches of Halloween candy.
There's no escape. The Earth turns and tilts and slides us into winter whether we like it or not. One result of this cosmic dance is that, in the Southern Hemisphere, autumn is spring, so we could go one better than the sunbirds by changing hemispheres twice a year – catching spring and summer in Australia, for example, and returning in time to catch spring and summer here; it sounds lovely. But flying to Australia is even more expensive than flying to Florida. I guess we will stay here, turn up the heat, and put some ski racks on top of the car, just for show.
