The Autumn Leaves
In the South, where I’ve lived fifty years, we also have pretty fall days, especially in the mountains my last 20 years. We have chilly nights, too, and campfires, and sky so blue it hurts the eyes. The difference is that fall doesn’t foretell the bitter winter following close on the heels of autumn. Autumn in the South lasts until Christmas!
I don’t know what to expect here in my new home on the Coastal plain. It’s already colder than I thought it would be in October. Leaves are blowing and falling to the ground. They are crinkly, but in hues of brown. The decorations are the familiar pumpkins but here stalks of cotton in bouquets and in seasonal wreaths make use of other local resources. The air is scented, but it’s not the bonfire smoke; it’s peanuts roasting in the peanut factory. In another week in the mountains the trucks will begin to roll down from the mountain tops carrying the famous Fraser Firs to Atlanta and points south for the Christmas season, while here harvested tobacco is transported to warehouses and huge bales of cotton stand in lines at the gin. In towns and cities everywhere parade floats are under construction. Our new town also has a Christmas parade. It’s a flotilla, a parade on the water. We are four weeks away from Thanksgiving. Unofficially, autumn will end on my birthday and the Advent season will begin. There may be regional differences but for matters of the heart, we are all in the same autumn. With cheeks as rosy as apples, strangers walk briskly and wave with woolen gloves. Autumn is a friendly season, after all, and bids us to come outside for a little while longer.