Fall, 2010

I suppose that it is a certain confluence of occurrences that alerts me that it is becoming Fall. Of course, there is the advent of school. For almost sixty years I have prepared for the beginning of a new school year, once with looseleaf binders and pencils and crayons, then with notebooks and texts, and now with syllabi. There is an excitement to the beginning of the academic calendar, though I am not certain I can define the source of that anticipation. Perhaps it has something to do with knowledge, but that is not at all clear.

Fall also brings with it the High Holidays and the anticipation of the celebration of these sacred times. During these days the world seems to stop, and when we exit from the shul sometime after Sukkot, Fall is present.

The air, too, seems to possess a changed quality, though again, I am not sure that this is not something I impose on the air from my own sensibility of Fall arriving. There is a certain coolness to the air even in the midst of a hot late summer day that hints at Fall. It feels as if something had been removed from the air and the atmosphere becomes thinner and even fresher. The air takes on a particular scent, a consequence I think of the aging leaves preparing their deaths, and the trees entering a dormancy from which they will not exit for almost a half of the year. Squirrels appear frenetically active, burying every morsel that can be found still laying on the ground. The birds, all except the crows, start looking south.

I clean the fireplace and take out my corduroys. I will not need them for several weeks yet—even perhaps for a month⎯but it is a comfort to know that they hang expectantly for when the time is right.

I’ve never minded Autumn. Indeed, I’ve always anticipated it. Kitty Donohoe sings, “Some hold out for one last change/ Me, I love an Autumn Dance.” So do I, though I don’t usually dance.