Lackluster
I don't like fall. It's a portent of rainy weeks, cold days, and the slow glide into shorter days and winter dark. I don't like fall ever since I moved here. It's a lackluster fall, where the greens slowly fade in the rain. It seems fall begins in October and ends in March, when it slowly turns into spring.
I used to like it when I lived in Boston. Though it meant the end of long days and summer warmth, it also meant cooler weather to be able to wear a nice, warm sweater. It was also the beginning of the school year, when I would discover new classes and teachers, though that was a short-lived joy. But, above all, fall meant leaves.
Orange leaves, yellow leaves, red leaves, brown leaves. Flaming orange-red leaves, yellow tree tops, and green bottoms. It was nature's fireworks in the sun, lasting forever, and granting you new displays as you passed by parks, yards, and solitary trees. We lived near the Arboretum and some years we would go there for a Sunday walk to see the leaves. It was a resounding end to summer, and spoke of first snows coming up, though I hoped every year that the first snow would come right after the peak of the leaves, so as not to spoil the sights. Though we never drove north, into New Hampshire, to see the masses of colors quilting entire forests, we still had a New England fall in our neighborhood.
Now, I must conform myself with the yellowing leaves of the vineyards and a few deciduous trees planted in a park or two. Sometimes I'll see a small, imported maple in a yard, gloriously solitary in its proud red. More often than not, though, the warmer night temperatures and rain simply knock off yellowed leaves and let the native oaks turn slowly a lifeless dull brown before their leaves are completely knocked off by the winds of January storms, just in time for the first spring buds at the end of February. The other sentinels of the woods, the eucalyptus and pines, keep their dusty green garments all year, so it never seems like there's a proper winter, nor the hope of one. And every year, my hopes of seeing snow falling when I look out of my window on a cold winter's morning, are never fulfilled.
I used to like it when I lived in Boston. Though it meant the end of long days and summer warmth, it also meant cooler weather to be able to wear a nice, warm sweater. It was also the beginning of the school year, when I would discover new classes and teachers, though that was a short-lived joy. But, above all, fall meant leaves.
Orange leaves, yellow leaves, red leaves, brown leaves. Flaming orange-red leaves, yellow tree tops, and green bottoms. It was nature's fireworks in the sun, lasting forever, and granting you new displays as you passed by parks, yards, and solitary trees. We lived near the Arboretum and some years we would go there for a Sunday walk to see the leaves. It was a resounding end to summer, and spoke of first snows coming up, though I hoped every year that the first snow would come right after the peak of the leaves, so as not to spoil the sights. Though we never drove north, into New Hampshire, to see the masses of colors quilting entire forests, we still had a New England fall in our neighborhood.
Now, I must conform myself with the yellowing leaves of the vineyards and a few deciduous trees planted in a park or two. Sometimes I'll see a small, imported maple in a yard, gloriously solitary in its proud red. More often than not, though, the warmer night temperatures and rain simply knock off yellowed leaves and let the native oaks turn slowly a lifeless dull brown before their leaves are completely knocked off by the winds of January storms, just in time for the first spring buds at the end of February. The other sentinels of the woods, the eucalyptus and pines, keep their dusty green garments all year, so it never seems like there's a proper winter, nor the hope of one. And every year, my hopes of seeing snow falling when I look out of my window on a cold winter's morning, are never fulfilled.
When I was first in Switzerland people kept telling me how beautiful the falls were. If one had never seen a NE fall thy might think so with the yellow leaves. But it doesn't begin to compare. There are seasonal things like the first fondue or raclette, Brisole in Valais (chestnuts, cheeses, apples and local meats as well as the first pressing of the grapes) but it ain't Boston or NE. We were a bit ahead of the change but still enough to ohhh and ahhh for the drive to Montreal.
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