Nothing Gold Can Stay: Savoring Autumn

Early autumn is the golden hour of the year. Warm, ochre light breaks through the trees that offer new openings with each shake of the wind and pools in dappled patches on the yet-soft grass. It’s lovely because it’s a fleeting gift–a pause to harvest the last of summer’s abundance. 

This is the time of year when abundance feels so obvious, how it stares us in the face with each roadside sunflower we pass. It’s not hard to feel grateful and content when cradled in the weeks of September and early October. I inhale the scent of straw grass and ripening apples and give thanks, at the same time knowing the exhale resides just there on the other side of contentment, so near I can almost graze my fingertips along its wavering edges. 

The contentment is that tenuous. This pause will give way to the shedding of late October: leaves falling, rain failing, night falling earlier, the hint of a tan I acquired fading, mood dipping into melancholy. Each year I’m bewildered to so quickly find myself atop the threads of quiet reflection, the unspooling of daily minutiae and fragments of memories from years ago blown front and center with the tumbling leaves. 

It’s how it goes. Bright light casts shadows as well, and this, too, is beautiful because it represents how they work in tandem and the balance that hangs in the liminal space where they meet. The warmth and light are made more precious not in spite of the shadows but because of them. I, too, am both–the contentment and the restlessness. I am filled with both the autumn light and the darkness. Just as we all are. Just as any day is. Just as all of life is. 

In reminding myself of this very basic but essential truth, I can remind myself that days that bristle can be as fleeting as the perfection of the golden hour. And so the pursuit becomes not clinging to only those magenta-streaked maple leaves or shunning the barrenness but holding them both delicately and recognizing their worth.

For the next several weeks rather than mentally skipping ahead to holiday planning or getting bogged down in the flurry of work, I will find ways to savor the season. I will take the time and attention needed to slow down and rest as much in the abundance and light as in the patches of shade. I am confident that if I take the time to do these things and appreciate the moments, to be present in the delight and meaning of them, this autumn will feel just right in length no matter how fleeting.

Here are some ways to savor the season.

1. Mull cider with cinnamon and cloves. Smell your whole house come alive with the scents of fall, and then sip it outside or in a cozy nook.
2. Clip branches with berries and colorful leaves to form a pretty and seasonal arrangement. 
3. Go to a local orchard for apple picking and then bake yourself apple pie or apple crisp.
4. Go for a hike or stroll as often as you can, even if it’s gusty and raining, and see if you can notice the leaves and landscape changing.
5. Whip up a batch of pumpkin bread; bake extra and gift it to a neighbor or friend.
6. Take a hayride and marvel at the expansiveness of corn fields and the simple joy of bumping along in the cart.
7. Choose a variety of pumpkins and gourds from a nearby pumpkin patch and decide a new way to display them within and in front of your home.
8. Enjoy a bonfire in the crispness of the fall evening and marvel at the extra stars in the clear sky.
9. Even if you don’t have kids, buy yourself some new school supplies and take the opportunity to feel like you’re starting fresh.
10. Find a delightful spot to take in the seasonal beauty and have a picnic.