Random musings on my vagabond existence in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania and wherever else life takes me.
What a difference a month makes. The temperatures have cooled off dramatically from last month’s record-breaking heat and the air has turned deliciously fall-ish here in Pennsylvania.
This past week, for the first time since May, I found myself pulling on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt as I dressed for my morning walk with Cassie. It won’t be long before I’ll be throwing on a hoodie as I go about my day.
Summer is on its way out—I can feel it. While we still have a month to go before the autumnal equinox, summer’s grip is loosening in ways that are becoming hard to miss. The days are growing shorter. Daylight no longer rouses me at 5 a.m. but gives me another 45 minutes to sleep, if only I am willing to take it. At the other end of the stick, we’re not even making it to 8 p.m. before the sun dips below the treeline on the western horizon.
The grass isn’t growing as fast as it was, which means fewer mows for this weary groundskeeper. The leaves on the trees, which were deep green but a couple weeks ago, are looking old and rusty. Their best days are behind them, although some—the maples, in particular—will go out in a blaze of glory. Earlier in the week while I was out walking the property, the wind picked up and I was caught in a shower of brilliant crimson and yellow leaves falling from the sugar maple trees. I stood watching them swirl to the ground, transfixed.
I can’t say I will miss the recent heat and humidity. I’ve always been a cool weather person, which is one of the reasons I have a mountain house in northern Pennsylvania and not a retirement home in Florida. On extreme heat days such as we were going through in July, all I want to do is sit in the air conditioning and not move lest I break into a sweat (not easy to do when you have a German Shorthair Pointer that, heat notwithstanding, wants to go out for a walk every couple of hours).
There’s no need for the air conditioner now. Throw open those doors and windows and let in that fresh, invigorating mountain air! I love the smell of it, the feel of it. I find I sleep better at night when my skin is being cooled by air that is coming through the windows and not out of vents.
With the coming of fall, I feel my senses quickening like sap rising in a tree. Unlike the sap in trees that rises in the spring, mine rises in the fall. Maybe that’s because I was born in November and so the return of fall every year is, for me, like a salmon coming back to spawn in the stream of its birth. There is so much to love about the fall season: the cool, crisp air; the foliage; the excitement of the holidays. Birthdays too: not just my own but my late father’s, who was born on Halloween.
And yet, I’m aware that my fervor for the fall has been tempered over the years by all the losses along the way. Halloweens aren’t the same with the kids grown up and my father no longer around to celebrate his birthday amidst the trick-or-treating. Holidays don’t hold the same magic they used to when my folks were still in the old homestead where we would gather for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Family parties aren’t the same now that Mom is wheelchair-bound and unable to join us from the senior community where she lives.
With every passing year, I find that the coming of fall reminds me of my own mortality. This year, that is especially the case as I look ahead to turning 65 in November. How did I get so old? When we’re young, our mortality feels like a long-term mortgage that will have to be paid at some point, but the debt is so far down the road that we don’t have to think about it except when the unexpected passing of a family member or friend reminds us that we’re not going to be around forever.
Now, the payment of that debt draws closer. As a good friend of mine likes to say, “We’re in the fourth quarter, buddy.”
I’m reminded of the William Wordsworth poem, “Intimations of Immortality,” where he recollects the joys of his childhood and laments what has been lost—
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day.
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
It’s inevitable, and perhaps even beneficial, that our enthusiasm for the seasons of life dims as we grow older. When we’re young, life rages within us like a fire out of control. If we’re wise, we learn to corral that fire so it doesn’t burn down everything in its path and ourselves along with it. That’s a necessary part of maturity.
But age also gives us the opportunity, if we’re lucky enough to have it, of being able to look back at what we have experienced and find meaning in it. As the ever-optimistic Wordsworth puts it—
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind …
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
In other words, the losses that come with growing older teach us empathy toward others. They build our faith in something beyond this world. They give us a perspective on life that youth, by definition, cannot have. Not everyone gets the privilege of getting older, and so it’s important to see it as the gift that it is.
At least, that’s the way I’m trying to look at it as I move toward my 65th fall season. Yes, life’s losses change us, but the greatest loss is to allow the fire within us to die before its time. While we can’t avoid the inevitable, there are things we can do to keep the fire burning within us as long as possible. Like eating a well-balanced diet. Like staying active and exercising. Like working constantly to build our store of faith and optimism.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the trials I’ve gone through in my life, it’s that faith and optimism are like muscles. The more we use them, the stronger they get and the more we can do with them.
Fall reminds us that we are eternal spirits born into a perishable body. I can only pray that when my time comes, I burn brightly like the maple leaf.
Beautifully said, Jim!!