Keats painted autumn in quite a favourable light in his works, particularly in the poem “To Autumn”, noticing the season’s fruit filled “with ripeness to the core”, mellow, plump. He finds a sort of delight in the completion of all that has been budding throughout the hot, sweltering seasons up until August, while still acknowledging the impermanence of what exists before November. Many look forward to autumn, many find comfort and joy in the hues of burned leaves, the chill that buzzes into the air, fogging the future to spike our anticipation of what is to come, but I will forever and always miss the crackling heat of summer, the glorious days, the stretching hours that make one feel as if the magnificent will never end. It doesn’t, anyway. The golden lives between the crevices long after its epilogue.
Now, the peach-juice leaking fruits of the season are wrinkling. But then, it had only begun. January was punishing, brittle, remorseless, an existence over a living, dark creeping in through every space, snatching at the morning and evening sun. It was all a haze, an illusion, a thing to trudge through until there would finally be room to stretch out my arms. April knocked but it did not open its door. May did.
The cocoon of the chill may be comforting for some, but for me, and for those I know, summer was the true new year, summer was the time for life to really begin. And in the blooming of the marigold flowers, the blood crimson spillage of forest berries, the pen found paper again, the poetry made sense. How can you get more poetic than summer? Everything is filled, bursting, brimming with revival, resurrection. Colours we do not have names for rise to the surface, the air hums with the song of wildlife, the sun spills golden on you, until your hands are glitter coated, until nothing is left in the shade.
Perhaps for me, summer was always symbolic of defeating stagnancy, instability. Doubts and worries grew lighter, and sometimes they faded away completely. The sun was a testament to the fact that we can always rise, despite the most treacherous of falls, and it can be argued that the arrival of summer is as great as the hope of it, because we know that it will come, no matter what. As Dostoyevsky stated once: “I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I know it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.”
Summer sends a vigour down our bones that both encourages us to bask in the present moment but also urges to hurry. Run, race, take it all in before it is no longer here. And so with that balance of relax and sensation, one is frantic to note every element down, and through that, through the appreciation of each detail, we learn what matters most to us. What we would cherish first and last, why we would cherish it, why does it all really matters to us? Because we are told what should matter to us, or simply because we care? The season forces you to figure the very essence of yourself out, too.
I sank into every moment I could, and ran through it. I wrote until my fingers were numb, I read literature of those living through summers 500 years ago, marvelling at how despite our differences, a season shall always unite us. I ventured far and wide, to different countries and the different villages in my own country. I ate every fruit, every berry, that loses its sweetness and bitterness once summer is annihilated. I watched the sun rise and set, I prayed that this would last despite knowing better. I have always been one, to my dismay, to never lose complete hope, no matter how horrible things get. That stubborn fibre of my being always urges me to believe. Sometimes I wish I did not, and yet I do. Therefore, I prayed summer would last forever. I believed it would, because that is how summer feels. All that becoming, all that inexplicable feeling. You could savour every drop of life for as long as you wanted. You could do things your way without the winter lashing out on you.
And now, the not-so-inevitable September is approaching, and with that the beginning of an unstoppable descent. The detaching of leaves, the screeching of the little heat left as the chill takes over once more, the darkness, the slow loss of light.
But, I would not be so foolish as to disregard its arrival completely. I would not ever wallow over what externally cannot be altered, or, by that which might bring the unexpected, a delightful kind. Because seasons turn and life burns and there will always be another summer. The fall is inevitable. But so is the rise.
Autumn, be kind to us.
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Love, Erica x
Your writing is so beautiful 🌼