When the words “Autumnal Equinox” appear on the calendar they send a little chill through the heart as well as the body. Labor Day is one thing, but this is official. Summer is over. It should be more dramatic. But only the weather changes.
When we were in the south of France two autumns ago, everything changed. 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. Restaurants and shops cut down on their hours, or closed entirely. It was a true autumn – not just a date on the calendar but an economic, spiritual and social transformation.
It must be much the same in the Hamptons or any seasonal resort that has this chameleon character – in season and out of season. But, for most of us out here in the suburbs of the temperate zone, autumn is a season of denial. A few sunbirds flutter off in the direction of Florida, unable or unwilling to face meteorological reality, but the rest of us stay, obstinately or foolishly, right where we are. The temperature drops in the evening, the thermostat clicks, and the heat comes on, keeping our spoiled bodies at an even seventy-four degrees. The fruits and vegetables in the supermarket remain the same. We have eliminated the natural seasons, leaving only the commercial seasons. The Fall Festivals are already under way, leading up to Halloween. 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.
But, like it or not, we live differently in autumn. We spend less time outdoors, exercise less, and eat much more as we prepare ourselves for the great food ordeals of the coming months. That’s why it’s called Fall. The fall from dietary grace begins now, with the first batches of Halloween candy. Homeowners will face many challenges. Billions of leaves will fall, smothering the yard and choking the gutters. The old heating furnace, which has been neglected all this time, will fail to work. Winter clothes will come out of mothballs looking sad and rather squalid like costumes for a historical Russian movie.
Poets have strong feelings about autumn. Keats famously called it called it the “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” which sounds lovely. Shakespeare wrote of “Teeming autumn, big with rich increase” – which seems to augur well for the stock market. But perhaps William Cullen Bryant was more on the mark when he wrote of autumnal days as “The Melancholy Days, the saddest of the year.”
Would we miss autumn, with its gloomy songs and falling leaves, and the relentless deluge of holiday catalogs? It is a kind of preparation, as we fall helplessly towards winter, and a year without seasons would be strangely dull and flat, like a year in southern California. Which reminds me that I spent a year in California once, and it was dull and flat – mild and sunny almost every day – and it was absolutely wonderful.
Copyright: David Bouchier
