Fall
Johnny Jones, 19 October 2001
I walked closer to examine the cluster of little yellow flowers gathered around the tree trunk; what would be blooming in the woods this time of year? When I got nearer I found, not the harbingers of spring, but a reminder of autumn. The yellow flowers behind the old oak tree was a yellow leaf instead. It was saying to me, "Not spring, silly! Fall!"
I always dread losing summer. I grieve. I wear shorts with a sweatshirt to avoid putting on long pants (that would be giving in!). I fuss. I cling to summer like a child clutching her Teddy Bear. If it weren't for the gnats I would fret even more.
The gnats always show up in force around Labor Day, and they like me a lot. If Chip and I walk together, they ignore him to solicit my attention. They go for my ears, and, especially, my eyes. The worst ones fly fast and close.
On my most successful early fall walks I kill several of the dot-like insects. I am especially proud when I kill two with one clap.
But the gnats provide a service: They remind me there is a downside to summer. The cooler mornings were better for Ollie. With his smushed-in nose, our Boston Terrier had trouble with heat and humidity. And with cold, of course. But fall and spring were his seasons to get back in shape, to go on long walks, to regain his vigor when he still could.
When I looked at a U. S. weather site on the Web the other day, I noticed that the low in Houston was hotter than the high here. I told Bryan about it when I talked with him. "I'm glad I live in Houston!" he replied.
"But Byan! You'll miss the fall!"
He laughed and gave me one of his patient, "Yes, Mom"'s.
I guess he's thinking about the year he came home and we hiked the trails he had ridden on with his old 100 cc Yamaha, and, since it was October, we forgot to use insect repellent and came back covered with chiggers that showed up with intensity during the next couple of days.
Or maybe he's thinking about when he was in junior high and the weather had turned, but we hadn't had a freeze, and he got a bad case of poison ivy after building the dirt bike trail in our woods.
But he can't be remembering the glorious autumn when I turned 39 and my mother came to visit us and made me a birthday cake. It was one of the prettiest falls I remember, and I loved sharing it with her. She had never seen anything like before; the seasons don't change in south Alabama. They just blend into one another without distinction.
Or last fall, when he brought four friends from India and Iran to experience another part of America. They used up rolls of film hiking around Council Bluff lake, framing the colored trees in water's reflection.
Fall is here. We can see it, hear it, smell it in the air. The yellows we see are not daffodils or crocuses, but goldenrods and leaves. So I'll put on a pot of beans and make some cornbread; I'll crunch the leaves and acorns as I walk; maybe we'll pick some apples and bake a pie. You can't stay grumpy for too long this time of year, even if you're a dedicated summer person.
Besides, the air smells good this time of year. And isn't the morning and evening light beautiful as the sun gets lower in the sky?
But fall comes so quickly. As Edwina Fallis' "September," says,
Asters, deep purple
A grasshopper's call
Today it is summer
Tomorrow is fall.
And me? I celebrate and mourn.
