Autumn: A Glowing Review

Reader Contribution by Cindy Murphy
Published on November 4, 2008
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The end of October; this time of year signals the end of so many things. I always think of this as the end of autumn, although the calendar says we have almost two more months to go. Autumn is by far my favorite season, but it’s a bitter-sweet time for me. The nursery closed this past weekend. I’ll stay on a bit longer to help with winter preparations, and then I’ll have plenty of time to catch up on my reading, volunteer at my daughters’ schools, and start in on that long list of projects that will languish half-finished until spring when I’ll make a mad-dash to get them completed before returning back to work.

This fall has been one of the most beautiful autumns that I can remember – the colors have been spectacular! A recent snap of wintry weather left a lot of trees bare, but there is still an amazing blaze of color left. I’ve always struggled for an accurate way to describe autumn’s beauty and color, and the feeling I get from it. I lack the eloquence of poets whose words flow like music and dance along the page, like autumn leaves dancing in the wind.

Red, yellow, orange and brown and all the hues in-between. Chlorophyll that keeps the leaves green fades as the days grow shorter, and the temperatures cooler. The pigments lying in wait under the green begin to peek through as the chlorophyll breaks down – anthocyanin for red, carotene for orange; yellow is xanthophyll, and the brown color comes from tannin. Reducing Autumn’s beauty to a scientific process using a handful of chemical terms that I can’t pronounce, takes all the magic from the season.

Part of the magic of the season comes from Halloween. My favorite season contains my favorite holiday, and it is a magical time to celebrate being a kid all over again. But Halloween is over; the ghouls and goblins have gone into hiding again until next year. Like this fall, it was over too quickly, though it was absolutely gorgeous while it lasted. The sunny, warm, windless sky, turned into the perfect night for Halloween – it was the kind of day and evening that makes me wish Autumn lasted a whole lot longer.

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