Friday, September 3, 2010

Indian Summer or Long Lost Fall

California has the blessed autumn tendency to be hot in September and October.  When I say blessed, I actually mean weird.  September should be cooling off.  October is when you get your first snows.  Leaves should be shifting from green into yellow, orange, red, and brown.  I am waiting for pumpkins to be gutted and apples to be picked.

Truly Autumn is the season I miss most of the Northeast.  It is the glory of New England.  All of the green from the spring and summer is harvested into warm colored wonder as the days shorten into crisp cool school walks.

Summer is a time of beaches, swimming, cavorting and messing around.  That is what I associate with the gentle heat of northern summers.  How can you go to school in excessively hot and humid days when the sky is a clear blue and the water is in driving distance? Yet that is the fall in which I find myself.  It is pretty, but it is not autumn.  To get the true feeling of autumn I must transport myself - I must create it. I find myself traveling on thin wooded paths along the Hudson river and wandering through orchards in the Adirondacks all in my memories. If only I could recreate the smell of hot mulled cider, hayrides, and rotting apples half eaten by gray tree squirrels.  Alas, I must settle for the salty bay air, the sun shining through layers of green leaves, and large strange garden spiders living on my patio.  It could be worse.  I could be in Phoenix.

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