The autumnal equinox roared into town like an express train last week, glorious plummeting temperatures taking us from summer to fall in the space of a day.
That’s not the way it usually works, of course. The change in temperature, and the shift in feeling and temperament that it encourages, normally lags the annual cycle of the sun, as the air and surrounding waters of this city grudgingly give up their heat to the oncoming winter.
And that first, sharp, cold blast is still holding now – also unusual, even compared to the chillier autumns of my youth in this city. I’m loving this cool, crisp autumn air, sweeping away the summer’s heaviness and humidity, leaving me with the gift of clarity that it always brings.
As my thoughts slowly begin to cohere again, bit by bit, day by day, I’ve been looking over my earlier and upcoming posts in this space, and I find myself a little surprised to notice how many of them are centered on the changing seasons, and the way they intersect with the experience of daily life in New York.
I hadn’t intended that to be the focus of this blog, but in retrospect it was probably inevitable. Living in one place for a very long time affords an opportunity for patient, careful observation, including the chance to learn and understand the daily experience of nature – whatever that fraught, up-for-grabs word means – in this strange mix of urban and feral and cultivated environments, unfolding over the slow, ceaseless passing of annual cycles, year in, year out.
Memories. A single fallen leaf, still smooth and green throughout, except where touched by a bar of flame pink and a wash of lemon-gold. Feeling the last dry acorns crunching underfoot, walking door to door for Halloween, your costume hidden sadly under the winter parka your mom made you wear, parched oak leaves rattling rust and brown on the branches overhead. Watching white-feathered herons from the 7 train as it passes over Flushing Creek, tall, stick-skinny legs wading through the muddy waters, resting briefly on their long flight south ahead of the coming winter’s blast.
The feel and texture of a place and time, always vanishing just out of reach – am I wrong to feel joy in the wild fierceness of the wind, knowing its cold fingers take the summer away…bit by bit, day by day?