"The golden rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down."
Fall is here, and as I look out the window and see shades of vibrant red and umber encroaching on green canopies and replacing the greens of summer, I instantly start mouthing the words of Helen Hunt Jackson's poem: September. I do this every year ... I don't think I've missed doing it for one year across the many decades since my fifth-grade teacher, Edith Kelly, drilled it into our heads in those first few weeks back at school.
As I look at dry leaves starting to float to the ground, I am made to realize that the stabs of "missing green" are sharper this year, as is the knowledge that cold days of winter are just around the corner. All of it made sharper this year by the many, many hours spent inside, at the computer keyboard. While I have always been attuned to and a lover of color, never before has the color green resonated on such a personal level as this year. Never before have I been as acutely aware of the relatively few times I actually experienced nature's shades of green on an upclose and personal level. The color and what it represented for me first hit several months ago with the onset of a New England spring and the color of trees in early bud.
I first remember being starkly aware of being surrounded by shades of "leafy green" while traveling Connecticut's Merritt Parkway en route to a business meeting. I was the passenger, so was able to really, for once, embrace and absorb the historic and noteable forest that lines the Parkway as it erupted into Spring. It was like being catapulted into a Monet painting and watching it morph across the miles ... with too many soft and differentiated hues of leafy green to describe or remember. I do remember it as being almost ethereally calming and healing ... providing a sense of renewal.
Another remembered moment is when I sunk my bare feet into lush green lawn, curled my toes and felt the warmth of the underlying soil. Again, a healing moment. While it is a moment that I look forward to every year ... indeed, there were many years of cyring "ouch" when it came time to fit summer's bare feet into the new bought shoes for the school year ... again, I don't believe that I really just took the time to look down and relish the greens of the grass under my toes. That's what comes of always moving a little too fast and furiously.
A third remembered moment, probably the sweetest and the one that I will pine for the most as colder days approach. A rare afternoon nap with the bedroom door open and the floor to 16 foot ceiling opening up to the spreading canopy of green just outside. The soft breeze rustled the green leaves, entered and left a soft whisper upon skin. It was a moment of pure pleasure. And an invitation to roll over and gaze upon more shades of green than I can contemplate. The memory of that one afternoon's nap will live with me forever. I knew in that moment, that for me, green and its many hues of splendor, represent life ... life given, life renewed, and life affirmed.
In contemplating this, I recently went and checked the "greens" in the Crayola "64" box. As I mentioned, I love color and there has never been a time that I can remember when I did not have a box of the "best crayons". They were often my favorite gifts to receive and I cherished them and used them kindly for as long as they lasted. (I even have - as a collectible - the very first Crayola "64" box with the first sharpener, unopened and unused ... from 1958!) In checking the green colors included ... green, yellow green, green yellow, spring green, forest green, blue green, pine green (they sure did try), none of them did justice to the "shades of green" which I relished over the last few months.
I write this .. albeit from a melancholy place ... to invite all of you who read to become aware of the colors that surround you and the effect they have on you. I would love to hear from you on the subject. In the meantime ... cause Fall is actually, usually a favorite season of mine, I invite you to enjoy the rest of "September":
"The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pools the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook.
From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens,
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer.
But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.
"T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget."
As for me ... I will console myself with this year's ultimate loss of "green" and embrace autumn's shades of red, brown, and umber with the knowledge that Concord Grape pie is waiting around the corner.
Thank you, Miss Kelly.
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