David Murdock Column: On Autumn 2022 (regardless of the calendar)
I care not what the calendar says, fall “done went and fell on us” last week. Starting along about Monday, Sept. 12, the weather in my parts whispered “It’s fall” to me. Soon, it’ll be “stew weather” — the optimal time to enjoy beef stew.
When I traipsed out on the porch with coffee that morning, the chill in the air forced me back inside for a jacket, that favorite old heavy hoodie I keep hanging near the door. The one that’s not going to last much longer — the cuffs are frayed to threads, and the zipper is starting to become a little “difficult,” to say the least. It’s served me well over the years.
All my life, I’ve loved this time of year. Really, I couldn’t say why. It’s just magical somehow. Especially this year, with the hot summer we’ve had.
Autumn surprises me, too. And especially this year. I didn’t expect it at all, but that was expected. Looking back over things I wrote decades ago, I’ve been writing off and on about this season since the 1980s … and one line from back then mentions how much the arrival of autumn surprises me. So, this feeling is nothing new for me.
It just seems like the “surprise” is more surprising every year. One morning, I wake up, make coffee, go out on the porch, and … there it is. Cool weather with a tang to it.
That tang announces the season. And “tang” is not the perfect word; I only use it because I don’t have a better one.
There’s a taste and a smell to the air of autumn. It rained over the weekend here, and that autumn tang permeated the atmosphere out here. Rationally, I know that smell and taste is “petrichor,” which Merriam-Webster’s defines as “a distinctive, earthy, usually pleasant odor that is associated with rainfall especially when following a warm, dry period.” Petrichor is that odor produced when rainfall washes over stone (or stone-like material like asphalt), but to me it is a lovely fragrance that I associate with “relief.” A cleansing, cooling rain produces petrichor.
We’ve all enjoyed it at one time or another, even if we didn’t know that rather uncommon word for it. I remember the delight I felt a few years back when I ran across the word, one of those times when I thought, “Yes! That’s it, exactly!”
The petrichor of autumn has a different tang than spring and summer versions of it. Those are lovely, especially when it’s been so blazing hot that the rain brings a moment’s respite. But the thing about that summer “rain on asphalt” fragrance is that it’s only temporary, and it only makes the humidity worse as the summer sun blazes it away. That humidity is even visible in the mists rising off the roads as the moisture evaporates.
The pleasant tang of autumn is lasting. I know it’s time for fall when the petrichor doesn’t flee with the first wind.
I wrote earlier that autumn surprises me every year — I think I’ve figured out why it does. I’m “calendar-based.” My life proceeds according to dates and times … in a way that the lives of my parents and grandparents didn’t. My grandmother, especially, grew up in an agricultural environment. Before her, my family farmed. Mom and Dad lived “on a schedule” due to their professions, but they never forgot the lessons of their parents.
I wish I’d paid more attention to the lessons my grandmother taught; I wish I’d written it all down. All I have now is the memory of what she said, and she was a wise woman in the ways of the world. Not the industrialized world in which I live, but a world that lived or died according to a knowledge of the seasons. She talked a lot about what the old folks called “weather signs.”
Yesterday, my copy of the new "Old Farmer’s Almanac" arrived in the mail — the irony of that statement delights me. The store where I’ve purchased my almanacs for years didn’t have them this year! They even seemed surprised that someone asked for one.
I’m a bit of an almanac snob — I like the "Old Farmer’s Almanac," not the "Farmers’ Almanac." Even the difference between “Farmer’s” and “Farmers’” tells me something.
Instead of looking around — many other stores in this area must sell almanacs — I ordered it online. There’s another difference between my world and my grandmother’s world. I haven’t had time to look at it yet, but I have a pretty good guess what it will say. The signs of a cold winter are quite evident.
Although I do participate in the modern world, one way in which I resist it is that I insisted on having a physical copy of the almanac. It surprised me that there is an e-book version, and the “disconnect” of reading Old Farmer’s Almanac on a screen instead of a page is just too much.
Autumn always surprises me because I don’t spend enough time outdoors. My work is indoors. If I spent more time outdoors, I would have noticed the changes long before I did. As it is, I still noticed fall long before the calendar did.
David Murdock is an English instructor at Gadsden State Community College. He can be contacted at murdockcolumn@yahoo.com. The opinions reflected are his own.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: David Murdock welcomes the arrival of fall
