fall back

Well, here we are, the day after the switch from Daylight Savings Time, the day before the US Presidential Election.  Here were are.  And when I say “we,” I actually just mean me, sitting alone on my couch beside a stack of partially-graded annotated bibliographies, chipping away at my Halloween-red fingernail polish in a kind of helpless paralysis.  I’ve already set my clocks back and I’ve already cast my vote.  All I can do now is watch the sun set in its ever-quickening march to the days that are so gray and so short it’s almost as if the sun doesn’t rise at all.

Wow.  Boy, do I sound like anxious Annie.  Let’s start again:

I don’t want to write about politics because, well, plenty of people are doing that.  And, as far as small things go, politics surely don’t qualify.  Instead, I’d like to take a minute to think of brighter things–more specifically the gloriously unexpected chromatic displays of Vancouver’s many trees.

When I first moved here, I was unimpressed by the fall rains.  No, that’s not quite right.  I was impressed, astounded even, by the deluge that soaked quickly through the new raincoat I’d gotten specifically for Vancouver’s fall.  But certainly not pleased.  Eager, in fact, to shell out my newly-earned Canadian dollars for another more Gore-tex-y raincoat.  We arrived in August and I found out sometime the following February that the fall/winter of 06/07 had seen fewer days of sunlight than any in the previous ten years.  The knowledge that my first fall was extreme in its wetness was, somehow, comforting.  I mean, maybe such constant and aggressive precipitation truly was freakish, and unlikely to repeat itself.

In the seasons to follow, what I’ve learned about Vancouver’s rain is this: it is simultaneously constant and unpredictable–meaning that while it will most certainly rain much of October and nearly all of November, (and don’t get me started on December through April!) when and where and how hard is pure conjecture on anyone’s part, even the weather men.  (digression: the use of the male pronoun there is purely for the sake of being colloquial.  that, and I really like the archaic concept of a man who exists out in the ether who always knows and perhaps even controls the mysterious forces of weather. that, and I think fondly of the weather man of my childhood, dave dierks, who has magically not aged in the twenty years since he visited my elementary school classroom, thanks, at least in part, to a very authentic-looking toupee)

But let’s get down to it, the good stuff, the aesthetics of nature:

I know, I know this image looks incredibly photoshopped.  But in fact, it is not at all.  This image is just my camera freaking out at the overwhelming and lovely redness of this japanese maple. In all seriousness, this red was almost indecent.

This year, fall in Vancouver has been different.  And I know, it’s only my third fall, but, and you’ll have to take my word for this, my observations have been corroborated by people who were born here.  Fall has been different: cool and crisp, and most surprisingly, fairly dry.  Instead of a murky, muddy transition from climbing season to skiing season, fall has been its own pleasantly well-defined occasion.  Without the regular rains, our fall leaves actually stayed on the trees long enough to throw the chlorophyll in the laundry hamper and dazzle us with their exotic and unblemished naked selves.

So, I’d like to say a little thank you to fall, to these leaves and their recent exhibitionism, for taking a non-partisan approach to this most uncertain and anxious of seasons.

Thank you, Fall, or do you prefer to go by Autumn?  If you were invited to the debates, there’d be no contest.