Changes in Latitude Changes in Gratitude

 
 

I am not proud of this, not one bit, but I haven’t written any blogs lately, partly for fear that all that would tumble forth on the paper would be a homesick lament from yours truly.  Fall has always been my favorite of favorite seasons. Here in Texas, fall is truly both a continuation of summer (it is still well into the 90’s) and, if it rains, a return to spring.  Many plants that have convincingly played dead all summer get a second wind and produce a new batch of flowers, lovely but disorienting.  But Fall; with pumpkins in the field, apples in an orchard or a Technicolor blaze of color in the trees-not so much. 

However, I do realize that seasonal memories spring from whatever your native area produced so, I wonder, what fall means to many of you who live not surrounded by deciduous trees but by cactus?  We just drove to New Mexico over the Columbus Day weekend to meet up with two of my daughters at the Balloon fiesta.  We had lived in New Mexico for a few years when they were young and here we were, 25 years later, seeing it again.   

 I remember how a New Mexican Fall was the smell of Hatch chilies tumbling in large roasters by the side of the road.  Plus for two weeks in October, the Albuquerque sky looks like a Jules Verne scene, full of vibrant colored balloons some with impossible shapes that don’t look terribly aerodynamic. Fall in Albuquerque.

The drive there took us through West Texas where for certain stretches you would have to say, Fall must mean white cotton balls coating the side of the roads.  It is harvest time and with nothing to break the wind you end up with cotton-coated highways. Further along was a stretch of rabbit brush with its yellow bloom contrasted against red-rimmed rocks. Fall in West Texas.

Or perhaps it is the monarch migration that means fall to the people here.  Here they come, heading to Mexico and although I only counted 15 as we crossed West Texas perhaps, back in the day, a sky streaming with monarchs meant it was time to stock up on Halloween candy. 

 Or it must be Fall if robins showed up in your stream bed as they did last week at our nature center, red breasts versus red leaves.  They are only passing through, so now I know to enjoy the chirrup while it lasts.  It is not the omnipresent bird here that it is in the North.   

Perhaps to a South Texan this season is marked by kettles of hawks soaring over the Texas coast to make their leap to Central America or the season is changing when hummingbirds take extra long drinks of nectar in an attempt to pack on the weight before their Gulf Coast crossing.  It probably just depends on what you grew up with.  

So I will buy apples at the grocery store to can applesauce and pretend they are from an orchard and exult in any day that might be under 80. My cedar elms are turning yellow from drought, but they would also turn yellow now even with rain.  So, Happy autumn to me, Happy autumn to you, however you picture it.