As Autumn Falls

October 24th, 2020

Tordesillas, Spain,

Happy Fall everyone,

I hope you are staying warm!

September has turned into late October . The fields are yellowing and brown. Where once colorful flowers danced on the gentle breezes of spring, seed pods remain drooping dry and hollow— reaching for the repose of their winter bed.

My favorite costume, when I painted myself as the typical “Day of the Dead” Calavera Catrina

“What is your favorite costume?” I ask the 4th grade English class.

The students jump from their seats , excitedly waving their hands in the air, each eagerly wanting a chance at expressing, in English, their favorite seasonal dress.

“My faborit disfraz es one fantasma.”

(My favorite costume is a ghost.) One of the students replies.

Halloween—ghosts and zombies, trick or treating and tummy aches, every kids favorite holiday, or at least it was mine!

Dried flowers in the fields, Tordesillas

Halloween is a recent immigrant to Spain, and it seems the children have accepted this foreigner with open arms, and eager taste buds. Who doesn’t enjoy dressing up and eating a ton of candy?

This year, however, like all the other celebrations, Halloween was spoken of in past tense—- the fourth grade doesn’t know how to form the past tense yet, but they sure understand the idea that it is an action that happened and was completed before now—

Let’s hope Covid doesn’t bring us to teach the phrase, “used to” in reference to these beloved celebrations.

“Used to” this phrase is used in the sense of ‘formerly’ to indicate something that happened in the past but no longer does.

What I am grateful for this fall is the season itself. After two years living on a gorgeous island, literally on the beach, I had forgotten the joy of nature’s transformation.

Here, on the Spanish meseta, well, the shift from nude sunbathing to the necessity for a thick feather-down coat is dramatic!

Dried flowers with dried snail shells, Tordesillas

Autumn has always been my favorite season.

There lingers a sense of melancholy and sadness, of reflection and reminiscing as the exuberant carefree summer comes to a close and we turn our gaze toward the harsh months of winter.

I am lucky to have access to hundreds of kilometers of walking trails right out my front door, trails that zigzag through the agricultural lands of Castile, reminding me of the bread-basket fields of the Mid-West in the US.

Last of the corn in the field, Tordesillas

Today I walk through the last of the giving fields, tall stalks of corn, the remnants of wheat and rye, and alfalfa, witnessing the season let go of summer’s fecundity and retreat into the quiet slumber of winter’s rest.

Maybe that’s why fall seems sad, it’s the ‘middle age’ phase in the solar cycle. It reminds us that the long days of youthful summer and fun and parties, of get togethers and extended sunlight is wrapping up —-the change of season, of life, is coming. Winter beckons us, teasing us with the bite of a cold day, the shortening hours of sunlight, people moving indoors, all is quiet on the nature front—life stands still, and death hoovers closely.

A symphony of colors over water, Fall in Spain

Yet before the biting death of winter, the fall leaves come together in rapturous harmony to play their autumn symphony, ultimately culminating in a dramatic crescendo of colorful explosion—-it’s that moment of joyful celebration when autumn appears as a second spring, and each leaf is a flower.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower, Albert Camus

The precarious second-spring ends on the gust of a wind. The showy array of colors fall to the ground turning into the crunches of dried, brown matter below our feet.

Autumn is an in-between time. In Buddhism the in between times of our lives are called the Bardo. It is the moment just after the end of something (death), and the beginning of (rebirth ) something new.

This is why I love Fall, not because of the sadness, but because it is one of those moments in life where we are reminded that things end, which brings sadness with it, however, when we let go and flow with what IS, it is also a time of incredible possibility as we await our moment to be reborn again.

During this Bardo phase I am happy to report there are already many beautiful beginnings as I open myself up to new friendships, new places, and a whole new way of life.

I remember, a few evenings before I left the town of Gran Tarajal to live on mainland Spain, I ran into an Italian woman who I befriended on the beach during the early days after lockdown began loosening. Nico brings people together. She is a Leo with a great mane of blond hair and a charisma that attracts many. I feel lucky to have gone to her dinner parties, explored long stretches of beach, and enjoyed cool drinks on terraces with her. With her I met several wonderful people from many parts of the world.

That evening, as we were toasting to my new adventure she mentioned she had a friend in Valladolid. She gave me his number. I wasn’t sure I would call, I didn’t want to bother anyone… I know, I must get over this!

Well, thankfully most people, I have realized, don’t mind being bothered, and Nico’s friend called me.