Fall is not a quiet season.
It’s loud. Loud in its appearance, loud in its voice, loud in every way. Twice golden and glowing, the leaves glisten in the rise and fall of the sun. A confetti of leaves, shapes and shades. Each day there’s a new one in a new color. You get up close to the trees in a way you don’t in other seasons and just by looking at the ground. Trees wave dramatically, bending as the wind blows in gusts, as strong and loud as any ocean wave. The pile of leaves grows and grows like all the year’s unfinished projects. Leaf blowers whine. It’s sixty-eight degrees one day before there’s frost in the morning on another. One by one, plants start to go to seed. Patterns change on the marigold.
You’re hit with Halloween decorations, discount turkeys, and Christmas buys and the people descend. Animals scurry about. Squirrels and chipmunks wreak havoc digging around to hunt and stockpile their food supply. How can you think with all the attention fall demands? The wind blows, the rain pounds and suddenly the show is in its fourth act. Then just like that, the volume’s turned off, the visual’s are gone and the air that was heavy with the scent of leaves each night is now just cold.
Winter came naturally to me. Spring was fun. Summer brought back sleepy memories after a long, sluggish heat wave. But the elements of fall, or autumn, while abundant, are overwhelming. In using the elements of the seasons as writing prompts, I struggled with this one. All I could do was watch and record the changing landscape. So now, on this last day of November, with already several days of damp, cold, and grey skies behind us, this entry is just that, a record.
Mariam Sultan 