I came into the world in autumn, a season where evenings grow cooler and people walking home from the train station crunch through leaves on the last leg of their evening commute. Daylight hours dwindle, and kitchens glow now during family dinners after children have been collected from soccer practice.
I love the colors of autumn. I love that trees offer us their most primal beauty before shutting down for winter.
Today I had my first cup of cider for the season at the farmer’s market in downtown Kirkwood. I’d actually dreampt of a field of sweet corn growing on stalks about a week ago. Instead of trying to interpret the dream as a metaphor, I decided to take it literally, and just go buy myself a few ears of corn. Today’s market is much fancier and more cheerful than it was 30 years ago, where men in dusty overalls used to gather to sell the bounty of their crops, or somebody else’s, from aluminum bushel baskets or old coolers. Now there are seasonal crafts, signs with vegetable prices in fancy lettering, and a table of blueberry and banana nut bread loaves. The friendly woman in charge of the cash register convinced me to try a sample from a cross between a melon and a cantelope. It was juicy and sweet, so I took one of those with me, too. She gave me two flyers about their special events coming up, and I accepted both of them instead of handing one back, (an attempt at being environmentally conscientious) so as not to seem unfriendly. Heading home with a bag of fresh tomatoes always gives me an optimistic feeling about the day ahead.
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Autumn used to mean a new white pair of tennis shoes, and a new resolution to keep them clean. My uniform was always stiff the first couple of weeks of school, from whatever process my mom requested of the dry cleaner to make it look pressed as long as possible. But the stiffness would go away soon enough after I’d tossed it on the ground many times by the swingset, so I could climb on the jungle gym without stepping on the skirt part. Just until the carpool lady pulled up.
It was also was a good season for after school snacks, my mom hoping to sweeten the transition to a more rigid daily routine. With fond memories, I grabbed a bag of chocolate wrapped in fall colors at a cute little store in downtown Kirkwood. The place was called Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate. How can you walk by a store with a name like that? I love a store that unapologetically caters to people seeking sweet treats, an offset to the realization that dusk is falling sooner now, and temperatures will drop. Time to get a little more serious in our endeavors.