The Smell of Autumn

2 September 2008

Somewhere in the last week of summer vacation, something changes. I only notice this change twice a year, in early March and in early September. I can’t feel it, or see it, or sense it, or hear it. Yep, I smell it. Or, I guess you could call it a feeling in your nose, however you like it. The air changes. But I don’t smell pollen. In March, it is still cold, as it is still winter. But it smells warm. And in early September, it is still hot, but it smells cold.

So I’m outside on one of these late summer nights. I try to smell it. And I do. But I try to really smell it, but it doesn’t work. I inhale more and more air, but like Proust, the more I do that, the more it leaves me. I smell it only in a natural breath. Anything forced is just normal summer air, and it loses the change. But in a normal breath of fresh air, it’s almost as if the air going through my nostrils come in cylinders. On the outside of the cylinder is the normal summer air. But in the center is a thin amount of the change. It never really reaches my nostril, but I can smell that it’s there. That’s why when I breathe in more air, nothing changes. But every September morning, and every September evening I’m in fresh air, a movie plays in my head. It’s about, umm, 2 seconds. A train flashing by on a mountain, and me throwing leaves in the air. That’s it. Two seconds.

When I was younger, my mother brought me to New Hampshire. And in New Hampshire, we went on a fall scenic view train. And that was the best nature experience for me. I never had so much fun and appreciated it so much. And I got to wear a turtleneck, since it was autumn. I love being warm in a cold environment. In the summer, I sleep under a warm blanket with the air conditioner on. So I love being able to wear a long turtleneck in the nice crisp weather of the fall. Also when I was younger, my father brought me to a park in Jamaica Plain. There were leaves everywhere! We gathered a pile, and oh yes, I jumped in them. And then I remember just picking up some leaves and making it rain; a happy smile still visible through the leaves at the end of my put-together memory.