Category Archives: Autumn

Spiders, Jeans and Apples

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Daylight now plays secondary to darkness. Not the awesome state of Dec. 21, but the gradual nibbling away of four minutes a day of sunlight. That doesn’t sound like a big bite of time until added up and you’re twenty-eight minutes behind the game in taking a walk, taking pictures of the last of summer’s flowers or merely reading without a lamp. 

Temperatures are also supposed to be heading to lower numbers. The boys will wear shorts until their friends pull out sweats or long jeans. It’s all relative. In March sixty degrees suggests that a sweater can stay in the car or at home. In October someone will pull out a jacket and hat, maybe even gloves, when leaving for work. Spiders find their way into the house, spinning webs where no one wants to see a creepy critter hanging. The hummingbirds are gone, but the geese increase in number, pooping everywhere and honking at ungodly hours.

Since the pandemic, things have changed. Or maybe it’s my age. Instead of planning a fall and winter wardrobe, I found new black pants, a pair of jeans, a new sweater, and comfortable shoes. A writer’s life is simple without office mates remembering that you’ve worn the same long black turtleneck for a few years. 

Open the windows for cool sleeping. Bake apple crisp or apple pie or apple cake. Celebrate the passing of mosquitos when walking the old dog. If it wasn’t for November 5, this could be the best time of the year.

Liminal Space

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Wednesday and Thursday in Minneapolis were a liminal space. Tuesday was in the low 90s and sunny. I welcomed my book group into our air-conditioned house instead of the baking patio, and I served lemonade pie, a frozen confection which suited summer’s last gasp.

During the night cool air crept in. No storm signaled it, but Wednesday dawned in the low 60s. The overcast day felt like a pause. A chance for our bodies to sit with the transition. Acknowledge and accept it. We were no longer part of the humid blanket of summer but not yet into the cool sunny days of fall.

So often we forget that we’re more than walking brains. We tend to ignore our animal nature. But some deep instinct responds to the season’s change–the later sunrises and earlier sunsets. The coming cold and darkness of winter. Beyond the sudden urge for apples instead of peaches and soups instead of salads is the emotional shift many of us feel. An awareness that feels metaphorical as well as physical.

Some are sad that summer’s over and won’t return for nine months. Others are relieved and energized by the sense of a new beginning–it’s a new season and time for new habits, new possibilities. This year, have seemed unsettled by the season’s abrupt change. I’ve sensed an undercurrent of unnamed emotions.

Today is sunny and in the mid-70s. Those underlying instincts are forgotten. Dissipated like the heavy cloud cover that pinned us in place on Wednesday and Thursday. Many have returned to being busy walking brains. But our bodies remember.

Long Time Coming

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A pretty, first snow fell in the Twin Cities on October 14, then disappeared providing weeks to prepare for the next season. Winter this year has been an unreliable roommate making Monday commutes miserable then offering a day or two of mild temps. A stingy relative refusing to share sunshine unless temps freeze cheeks. A mean neighbor dumping snow, ice, rain, sleet, snow and more snow making skating rink maintenance or sidewalk cleaning just miserable. 

Minnesota has not received the enormous snow dumps of Buffalo or the California mountains, but if you bought new boots this year you made a good decision. If you remembered dressing following extreme cold guidelines and prepared for the bus stop or parking lot hike looking like a Squishmallow with legs, bravo. Some of us gave up on attractive sleepwear to pull on flannels, hoodies and socks after dinner then stayed in the same as long as possible in the morning. Hard-core Minnesotans supposedly wear long undies twenty-four seven from November through March except when they escape for their winter getaway.

Beyond puzzle construction time, optimal sleep conditions may be winter’s attraction. No sun peeking around the window coverings when you go to bed, nothing sticking to your warm body, no birds at five in the morning.

Whatever the statistics are for this year, it has been a long time coming since we could wander outside consistently without a hat or gloves or boots. Oh, the joy of leaving the puffer coat unzipped and wearing old shoes when running errands. The amazing experience to eat dinner while natural light brightens the kids’ faces. There will be more snow, but it will be short lived. We’re heading into t-shirt, jeans and a light cover season. We are going to eat outside before the mosquitos multiply. 

Meantime, stay upright and don’t drop into a road crater. We have about as much control over shortening winter’s existence as our governments appear to have over rebuilding critical infrastructure. That will be a really long, long time coming.

Meditation on Autumn Equinox

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Long before a turning point is evident, tiny shifts lead to change: The last cut of the axe before a tree falls, the gathering force of an avalanche before it lets go, the final few cells piling up to a clot that blocks flow and becomes the stroke, the gradual loosening of a sleepy child’s fingers before the toy slides to the floor, the droop and dangle of a leaf before it drops, the new insight added to insight as a mind is changed. 

At autumn equinox, a near balance is struck when day and night are almost the same length before the northern hemisphere tilts toward winter. Minutes of daylight have been slipping away since June, and September’s days, though still sunny, are cooler. I don’t welcome the coming darkness, but accept it. And autumn has its compensations: apples, fires, and glorious colors.

Letting Go of What No Longer Serves Me

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In the fall, I often attempt to bring a flowering garden plant indoors. I can’t quite let go of the joy of abundant, bright blooms. This rarely works. Nonetheless, I brought in a small fuchsia this year. I will fuss over it—move it to a sunny spot, water and fertilize it, but in a few weeks, it will be half-dead and I’ll throw it out. Letting go of summer is hard, but this gradual goodbye makes it easier.

In similar fashion, I age my correspondence. Mail piles up unread for a few days. Or a week. Or two. Then I realize I’m really not going to donate to all of those people. My email inbox is full of emails with links to newsletters or articles that sound interesting, like something I want to read. Except . . .  not right now. After a week, I feel guilty (or is it, more realistic?) Then weeding out my mail and email is easy.

There are also the shoes I’ve stored because I might wear those flats again. Or the yoga pants that never fit but I thought I might fix.

A meditation I recently read described fall as a time of weeding out and letting go. Trees drop their leaves, fields are bare, and people turn inward as it gets colder. But to me, fall is a time of abundance, harvest, and storing up. The conflicting ideas puzzled me until I thought about how discarding is easier when I allow a little time to pass.

Then I can let go of what no longer serves me, just as the meditation suggests. That’s how I’ve reconciled the paradox of abundance and paring back.