The Arrival of Autumn
Now that Labor Day has passed, we find that autumn has at last, like a long-awaited houseguest, arrived on our doorstep. We had grown used to its teasing gestures in late August — a breeze here, a cooler evening there — but this week it seems to have finally unpacked its bags. The mornings have acquired a faint crispness, and we find ourselves looking twice at the shadows on the sidewalk, which stretch a little longer than they did even a week ago.
We have made no secret of our affection for a leisurely walk each morning prior to the start of the day, and this week those walks took on an added dimension. The trees across the city, as if on cue, have begun to swap their dark, reassuring greens for shades of orange, russet, and the occasional yellow that looks suspiciously like it was borrowed from a box of crayons. A rather handsome tree on the corner of 10600 South, in particular, has gone from brooding in summer to flamboyant in early September, as if determined to upstage its neighbors. Walking beneath it feels a little like being invited onto a stage set — we half expect applause at the end of the block.
One of our favorite distractions this summer was the sidewalk chalk art of the neighborhood children. Their drawings — ill-proportioned animals, suns with bubbly clouds, portraits of parents with improbable hairstyles — have decorated our sidewalks for months. Despite the intense heat, our amateur artists braved the oppressive noon-day sun to leave behind their miniature masterpieces. And now, curiously, that the weather has turned mild, their output has dwindled. Surely the return of the school year bears most of the blame, but we can’t help suspecting that the heavy sun itself somehow inspired the effort. Perhaps the relentless brightness made the world seem more promising, more willing to accept whatever mark a child might wish to leave on it.
It is, in any case, a little sad to watch the chalk dissolve and fade into pale smudges, until finally the sidewalk returns to its usual blankness. We find ourselves pausing to look at a half-erased cat, or the ghost of a hopscotch board, and realizing how quickly something vivid becomes a memory. The city itself seems to conspire in this vanishing act — rain showers, car tires, the shuffle of countless shoes. By October, no trace will remain, and we will be left to wonder if the summer’s gallery of chalk ever happened at all, or if it was imagined in the heat.
Autumn is, we confess, our favorite season, and largely because of this sense of nostalgia. There is a reflective quality in the air — a tendency for the cooling days to make one think of their own seasons. Watching the trees change, we can’t help but consider how much change we ourselves have endured. Perhaps, like the trees, we shed certain colors in order to grow stronger branches. The comparison is imperfect, but still it comforts us: to know that letting go is not an end but a prelude.
Each falling leaf represents a loss, yes, but also an announcement. It says, in its quiet, drifting way, that a new chapter is underway and that next year the branches will be fuller, the colors brighter, and the world, for all its sameness, slightly renewed. The rhythm is reassuring: endings dressed up as beginnings, absences that make room for returns. May we all be so lucky as the trees, who lose so much each year, and yet never fail to come back in splendor.