The mystery of fall
FTLComm - Tisdale - Tuesday, October 5, 2010
With the arrival of fall, and that arrival is almost certainly when the school year begins, the tempo of life changes. We fashion in our minds the time of transition, we still appreciate the warmth of a few near summer days, we watch the tree’s leaves turn colour and then blow away, although most of them end up right under the tree from which they came. The days seem to grow shorter a few minutes each day in the relentless march of time even though we know and expect it to happen it is a required matter of adjustment, more darkness, more lights and more jackets.
Commerce moves right along in step with the return of children to school and everyone back from their vacations as things both quicken and slow down at the same time. Rarely in the summer to we see fog but in the fall it seems to creep up on us. The world of agriculture is bent on getting this year’s crop harvested and preparations for next year while the dedicated gardeners harvest and clean up their crop of the year.
By October the leaves are mostly littering the ground and only a few trees are green while those that have turned colour now stand naked.
One of the elements of fall that is so much a part of my being and that is the light. There are low angels in the winter but the arrival of deep harsh shadows is so much a part of late September and early October that the time itself is defined by the light and the quality of that light. The same is true of the night. The darkness of fall is different from the softness of a summer night or the cold clatter of a black winter night.
But for now it is the time of change as day to day things are different and always there is the unexpected.