Autumn Barely

The calendar says fall has begun. Indeed much has fallen but not the foliage yet. Harvest may have begun elsewhere along with swollen gourds. The only seeds I have sown yielded my three wonderful daughters. still in the summer of their lives. 

I know the season has turned over only because Trader Joe's has gone orange with all things pumpkin, from soup to nuts and more importantly, long-awaited ice cream. 

As for nature, autumn arrives noiselessly on its own slow clock. Unlike the maples and sycamores of Vermont whose rust and ruddy leaves die like divas ablaze in a golden deathbed scene, ours just get drained of chlorophyll, curl up and drop, then become fish and swim away in the great cycle. However we are still far from skeletal boughs.

I doubt if my demise will be operatic. Some might say: I thought he died years ago. In fact, maybe I did and it slipped my mind in which case this has been an afterlife beyond my expectations. In the meantime, I feel evergreen, still filled with pluck and spunk. My branches may be bent but are not quite brittle and most names etched in my bark are still retrievable.

In order for it to be autumn, I have to be in the mind of autumn. Here in the Southland, summer has a long lease. We still have days in the eighties even as we may yearn for a change of palette from green to burnt sienna. So we have to create markers that signify the season.

One such is the weekend football games which continue to infantilize me now and then or, at least, keep the child in me alive. Passion for my team has a short duration and is inexplicable, which is probably why I can't give it up. The outcome changes nothing. I have a penchant for some things that resist the rational. 

Football also brings its own weather. It's a way of feeling the brisk air. Put the kettle on. We need our small pleasures to keep the wolf from the door. If, as Emily Dickinson wrote, hope is a thing with feathers, there is a mourning dove nesting outside my window. 

I shall take this as a portent of change. Godlessness works in mysterious ways.