Autumn

It was a few years ago when I first noticed that mid-August change in the air. Walking out into the sun of a new day, sensing something different, a cooling, a loss of intensity; the air that envelops strokes your skin and tells you that autumn is on its way. The first time I felt it, I was upset, I felt cheated out of my summer, shocked, that this feeling I’d recognised in September or October had intruded into August. I’ve since learnt that this first prick of season’s change isn’t always final. Summer can rally and return, but you know it’s only a temporary interlude by then.


For a couple of years I resented that change, failing to note exactly when it took place but recognising it as always premature. That’s because I’d always assumed that summer was my favourite season. Everyone loves sunshine and warmth after all. But what is summer? Does it not always bring disappointment? We have such high expectations of the season, and when skies darken and rain falls, we curse the weather, asking when the summer will come back, failing to understand that this is it. Autumn can bring warmth without summer’s ferocity and crystal skies that are freshened by the cool air. But when it rains and it’s cold, it’s what we expect of the season, we aren’t disappointed and the glorious, rust coloured leaves on blue skied days bringing on fruit and bonfires are prizes to be cherished when they occur. Dark, misty evenings drip with atmosphere shrouding lives in mystery. Far better to welcome the over achieving autumn than constantly lament the failure of summer.

Now it seems it has happened again, an unremarkable and at times dismal August has given way to a relaxed, inviting September. Welcome, then, to autumn.