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Summer makes me drowsy, Autumn makes me sing.
Winter’s pretty lousy, but I hate spring.
Dorothy Parker
Cool nights. Cool mornings. Russet burnishes the tips of maple leaves. Everything hangs in suspended motion, awaiting the great flowering of leaves. Growing up in New York City, I was oblivious to the seasons. I never saw a real pumpkin. Fall meant shiny shoes, notebooks and pencils, new teachers. My girlfriends and I hovered over the dog-eared Fall Issue of Seventeen. We had to know the new fall color. Aubergine? Burgundy? Pumpkin? Glossy pages of fair, straight-haired girls sported turtle neck sweaters, Tartan plaid skirts. We checked hemlines: mini or maxi, and the secrets of seduction. What I didn't know was fall’s daily explosion of color. I rode my bike in Central Park and admired the trees. Riverside Park too. Autumn seemed a singular event, instead of a slow turning as the earth covers itself, preparing for the long, fallow months ahead. For me, this is a different kind of fall. As the leaves flutter in the wind, littering my perennial garden, flowerless except for a resilient cleome, I know a new kind of solitude, one that I haven't felt for almost twenty years. It’s the fall of the Empty Nest. The bird has flown its coop. We've launched our beloved boy into the larger world outside of family. College. Back to school shopping included a Mac laptop, toiletries, and a mini-fridge for his dorm room. He lives there! No yellow bus to pick him up at the mailboxes, return him home. Well, that was awhile ago. The last few years, he’s been driving a Honda. Beware of nostalgia. No more checking homework. No curfew. Meals together. Midnight walks to our lake. Grocery shopping, I forget and stick a box of Cheerios in the cart. Hot Pockets. Celeste Pizza. The laundry is reduced by 75%. Drawers are closed, the toothpaste capped. I sit in my Adirondack chair and watch fall’s advance. The lights go out slowly in our little lake community. Huge ‘party’ boats with silver pontoons are pulled out of the water by men in high boots. Sleek motor boats follow and finally, the jetskis. Farewell. Wooden docks, dismembered, their posts stacked and blue-tarped. The aluminum ones are light and come apart like Tinker Toys. Houses close down, their windows boarded. The spotlight from Dancers Marina darkens. The autumnal equinox will soon pass. Shorter days, longer nights. I hope to learn from the wisdom of the seasons, the gravitas of nature. I watch the yellow school bus pick up another generation of children. |
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©Copyright 2007 Sonia Pilcer
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