“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
L. M. Montgomery, Ann of Green Gables
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
Albert Camus, The Misunderstanding [Act II]
“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” George Eliot, Life of George Eliot: As Related in Her Letters and Journals
“Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.” Robert Browning, Paracelsus
“Autumn…the year’s last, loveliest smile.”
William Cullen Bryant, “Indian Summer”
In mid-October, rural Iowa is awash in gold and green, russet and red, the white gauze of frost that skims the surface of grass and the white steam that rises from the pond in brief translucence at dawn. These are the glory days of autumn. And like Ann of Green Gables, I, too, am so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.
Today, as the temperature rises to the mid seventies, there is no hint of winter-to-come. The noon sun–almost hot enough to warrant sun screen–convinces us of a second spring when every leaf is a flower. And even when the dusk brings a crisp chill, you feel as though you might start all over again, you might take on a new name, all burnished with golden possibilities. In the Sanctuary of Autumn, it is like this on most October days. If you were a bird, you would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns, for your heart would swell with October song.
And yet. Something in you feels the tug of time passing much too quickly, of the bittersweet reality that October flashes the year’s last, loveliest smile. The paradox of autumn is just this: glorious life with imminent decay. Robert Browning claims that Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay. Perhaps. In truth, I find myself increasingly sympathetic for its decay. For my decay.
If, as some claim, our lives are like seasons, clearly, at age 61, I am well into the autumn of my life. Spring and summer spent, I walk the leaf strewn paths of autumn, keenly aware of how quickly gold turns brown, crumbling all too soon into dust. After the rain, I smell the dank transformation of leaves into earth. In the Sanctuary of Autumn, sixty-somethings praise and fear all that is October.
For us, golden does have advantages over green. It permits us to speak more freely, act more boldly, and love more deeply than we were able to in our greener years. With the patina of experience and wisdom, it rubs out the kinks and softens the scars. We settle into it gratefully, prostrating ourselves on its kind hearth.
But just as we marvel in the well-earned autumn of our souls, we lament the autumnal decay of our bodies. When it comes to bodies, green has the clear advantage. Golden is mottled with degeneration of joints and muscles and bones; golden signals the last course, the final curtain call, the end. Golden wisely warns: Don’t jump with abandon into that pile of leaves. Remember that you don’t want to have orthopedic surgery. Again.
Shakespeare understood this impending twilight. In his Sonnet 73, “That time of year thou mayst in me behold”, he writes:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
In their spring and summer seasons, others can see in me the twilight of such day, the glowing of such fire, the deathbed whereon their youth must inevitably expire. But as inglorious as the impending deathbed may be, the sonneteer breaks from the first three quatrains into glorious couplet. Here, Shakespeare gives me words to live by: when we perceive the reality of our autumnal selves, we can love that well which thou must leave ere long.
In the Sanctuary of Autumn, there is much to be said about loving well before leaving. Live like you’re dying. Live like there’s no tomorrow. It’s not how long you live but how well you live, etc. Trite and overused as they may be, we may find truth in the cliches of country western songs and greeting card verses, expressions we previously pocketed for “later”. And when “later” arrives on boughs where yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang, we are mostly surprised. When did green turn gold? When did auburn turn grey? When did the sweet songs of summer birds turn into bare ruined choirs? When did I turn old?
Still, autumn is surprising me daily with golden gifts I could have never imagined in my youth. Gifts of time–for reflection, for play, for reading, for talking and cat-petting, for creating and re-creating. Gifts of love–of family and friends. Gifts of faith–deepened and seasoned now through age and experience. In the Sanctuary of Autumn, these are gifts for unwrapping. I plan to love them all well before they’re gone.
