The Autumn Provinces

The Autumn Provinces

: catvalente; September 18th, 2011

It turned to autumn so fast. Literally, one day to the next.

Old men on the ferry were looking at a sun-drenched, hot day last week and saying “This is the last warm day. It’ll turn tonight.”

And it did. Suddenly the air is crisp, and there was a frost warning last night, and the very tips of the leaves are starting to go red. This is my favorite season, I love it so much I kind of married it (we got married on the most autumnal of autumnal days, in an apple orchard, with leaves falling all around) and I get so excited when the light and the air turns like this. It’s all coming–festivals (Common Ground! Sacred and Profane!) and my little museum space and Halloween and the Great Pumpkin and Thanksgiving and then SNOW and Christmas and St. Lucia and ALL THE BEST THINGS. Give me September through March any year. It is my time.

We went apple-picking yesterday with friends. I don’t actually much care for apples as a fruit (unless they are green), I’m more of a pear girl (and pumpkin! Which is not a fruit) but it was so nice to lie on the grass under a streaky blue sky with a big blue barn nearby and the soft thud of apples sounding. Two little girls in full tiaras and fairy gowns ran through the orchard rows. Crows watched.

Mirrored from cmv.com. Also appearing on @LJ and @DW. Read anywhere, comment anywhere.

( 30 comments — Write On My Skin )

zoethe

2011-09-18 05:55 pm (UTC)

Pumpkin is totally a fruit! And I completely agree with you about autumn. I want to like summer, but I just don't, not since leaving a climate without humidity.

alexandraerin

2011-09-19 02:29 pm (UTC)

Yes! Like the old rhyme says, "Seeds on the inside, fruit it be. ... um, ride?"

sarapada

2011-09-18 05:58 pm (UTC)

It is cloudy and raining here and I LOVE IT. Summer has been much easier for me this year because we have air conditioning, but I still love chilly days and hot tea and cozy blankets best of all.

p_m_cryan

2011-09-18 06:06 pm (UTC)

Bare feet on cold, old, smooth wooden floorboards tell me, as surely as any other harbinger, that Autumn is here. My old house holds the warmth or coolth of whatever the weather was several days prior, so this morning was the first time I had that Autumn-y feeling of needing socks.

katalopolis

2011-09-18 06:08 pm (UTC)

For the first time in ever I am really liking autumn this year. Usually I associate it with the beginning of "no sun for you, ever" (West Coast winter) and just being constantly cold (I am one of those people).
But maybe it's because I am relearning to knit and have SO MANY IDEAS for pretty warm things to make or because my life is pretty much all the awesome right now or maybe because I figured out that I kind of love being in my 30s or something else entirely... but I am so excited for fall.
I hope it lasts through the "no sun for you ever" winter.

katalopolis

2011-09-18 06:10 pm (UTC)

Oh and living in a place that is not literally full of holes is nice too. I like being able to heat the building I am in.

dr_phil_physics

2011-09-18 07:04 pm (UTC)

This is the best time of the year. So much so that I indulge in the more formal autumn when I can, rather than merely fall. (grin)

Dr. Phil

amagiclantern

2011-09-18 07:06 pm (UTC)

The leaves are just starting to turn here, spiders taking over the garden, and the race is on to preserve bottle as much of the season as I can before it goes. It is the best time. Bring on the cold weather.

Pat Bowne

2011-09-18 07:25 pm (UTC)

If autumn were a person I would absolutely marry him/her. Ooh, story idea!

murasaki_1966

2011-09-18 08:32 pm (UTC)

I love autumn, and hope to see it in a place where it is much more noticable than here.

Under the Southern Cross, we are warming up to summer. it hit 31 degrees C in my suburb yesterday. It's a lovely time of year, warm during the days and cool at night. Sadly summer with its heat and smell is coming fast.

shaula82

2011-09-18 10:31 pm (UTC)

This! I kind of wish we could just cycle through spring and autumn.

I don't know where you live exactly, but if you can get yourself to Tasmania or Southern Victoria, or even the Blue Mountains, they do autumn much better there.

murasaki_1966

2011-09-18 10:50 pm (UTC)

I have been and they do. I studied in Canberra for a while and lived in the Southern Highlands of NSW, and loved autumn. Sadly, autumn was always followed by winter. I agree, let's remove summer and winter and just have spring and autumn. Currently in Sydney - where summer is hot and sticky and winter is cold and annoying. Could be worse, I could be in Darwin.

I also lived in Alice Springs for a while, and while decidous trees are thin on the ground there, autumn in the desert is rather magical.

cimeara

2011-09-18 09:52 pm (UTC)

I don't much care for apples as such either. But (recipe today in my LJ) they go very well with pork and/or cabbage, and how do you feel about apple chutney? It's ridiculously easy to make.

deadshrimpblues

2011-09-18 10:56 pm (UTC)

I am sort of envious of people who live in places with actual autumn. It was 106F last week and if I haven't mentioned this lately, I fuckin' hate Texas.

Autumn is my favourite time of year, it's when my birthday hits, I'm a Scorpio and a pumpkin-eater* and a tromper of leaves. I just wish I lived in a place where I could do those things.

*Does anyone else hug the pumpkins when they first re-appear in the shops? They deserve it.

tsarina

2011-09-19 12:23 am (UTC)

Oh I agree. It would be so nice to have an actual autumn. I mean, I've come to love my homeland Texas, but it does cause me no end of pain with this horrid drought and weather.

While not a pumpkin eater, I love to hug pumpkins. So much that I named my cat Pumpkin.

murasaki_1966

2011-09-19 02:04 am (UTC)

he's a handsome lad.

rivenwanderer

2011-09-18 11:18 pm (UTC)

*discworld troll fistbump*

I went HIKING today and the cooler weather was the best thing ever.

juushika

2011-09-19 12:32 am (UTC)

Our weather also turned in a single day, and it's been a blessing. The leaves are still taking their time, but the return of cool rains to a place (the Other Portland) that indulges in them for nine months out of the year is like a homecoming.

kuangning

2011-09-19 12:36 am (UTC)

Pumpkin is absolutely a fruit, as it has seeds, which is the only requirement. :) And I love autumn.

opalblack

2011-09-19 03:37 am (UTC)

Half right. The part of the flower that produces the flesh also has a bearing. For example, the core of an apple or a pear is a fruit because it's derived from the ovary, but the part we colloquially identify as the fruit grows out of the hypanthium and is thus not fruit proper, but what's known as accessory fruit.

But that's a degree of specificity the average shopper just doesn't need ;)

ysobelle

2011-09-19 02:37 am (UTC)

"I tell you this across the withered vine...."

opalblack

2011-09-19 03:27 am (UTC)

Pumpkin is a fruit. Botanically.

But pears and apples aren't, though the cores are.

Common Ground

coffeehouse

2011-09-19 03:49 am (UTC)

I'm coming up on Thursday, Driving to stay with mum in Freeport.
We will be attending Common Ground on Sunday. Will you be there that day?
My friend Toki will be back this year. She makes Toki Cards.

Re: Common Ground

catvalente

2011-09-19 04:11 pm (UTC)

We haven't decided which day we'll go, but probably Saturday?

mysterysquid

2011-09-19 09:16 am (UTC)

Done the same here in Melbourne - suddenly it's spring.

ironed_orchid

2011-09-19 12:24 pm (UTC)

And here in Canberra.

People even had the nerve to complain that it was too hot, too soon.

unquietsoul5

2011-09-19 11:17 am (UTC)

Some of us had no choices in the matter, being literally born to the season :-)

fortunavirilis

2011-09-19 12:34 pm (UTC)

Autumn is my season too. And this will be my first true autumn in over 13 years. I'm constantly giddy as I buy sugar pumpkin for soup and see each tree start to turn on my drive to and from school' munching on apples and drinking pumpkin ale. In the chill of the early morning there is fog hanging on the river, like something from a fairy tale. My heart bigger grows each day as the season unveils itself to me.

firynze

2011-09-19 03:34 pm (UTC)

It suddenly became mid-fall here, too, and it's really messing with me. I ADORE autumn, especially here in New England, but it was such a sudden turn that it's confusing me and making me sort of irritable!

That sounds like a great apple-picking trip.

gleomstapa.wordpress.com

2011-09-19 08:59 pm (UTC)

Sometimes it feels like whichever season I'm in is my favorite ... but I do love autumn. We got the change last week; though only a few trees have turned, the crickets don't chirp anymore and it's suddenly cooler. Summer is when I get to wander around and go places, which is exciting, but then starting in autumn we all come back together and make food and have community events and things! I need both the wandering and the hearth, but the feeling of coming home to My People in the fall is huge (and the fresh apple cider doesn't hurt, either).

Here, the crows will come later, and in great flocks.

( 30 comments — Write On My Skin )

catvalente

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Re: Common Ground