An Autumnal Transition
Imogen Williams shares her autumn short story about the beauty of seasonal change
Over the last few weeks the autumn season has well and truly rolled in to give us its annual warm hug as it generously phases us slowly out of bikinis and aloe vera and into big coats and hot water bottles.
Every year it invokes in me a strange sense of nostalgia which I struggle to place. I think it’s that it feels very whole after the disconnect of Summer. Life settles back into a routine with the return to school, studies, or work after a summer of intermittent leave. Suddenly you can once again pin people down for a weekend dinner, the fire is lit in the house and, miraculously, all family members are there to enjoy it. At last, at long old last, there is again a roast on the table most Sundays. I think it is this return of what and who we know best that creates such a sense of togetherness in Autumn.
Nature undeniably contributes to my fondness of the Autumn season. It brings the glorious tones of amber, crimson and auburn to the streets as the fiery leaves start to fall and crowd our paths. It brings the familiar crunch underfoot as we pace through the leafy beauty going about our busy autumnal lives. Seasonal apple and rhubarb crumbles return to the menus of our favourite restaurants and blackberry picking is rife. Beautiful photographs of never-ending pumpkin patches fill our social media feeds as we prepare for the first holiday of the season: Halloween.
Life settles back into a routine with the return to school, studies, or work after a summer of intermittent leave
The weather playfully changes, kissing goodbye to summer and opening its arms to winter. We have days of blue skies and crisp temperatures, Indian summer days, and we get those first falls of rain, which in this early Autumn stage feel exciting and new after the heat of a summer. We see the Harvest Moon and we are gifted a new cycle of stars. The world changes around us, as we return to our rhythm and it’s a feeling that will never tire for me.
Autumn also brings the return of a new fashion season. I can’t be the only one who welcomes layering jumpers and choosing a big coat in place of the endless swimwear battle and a summer of forgetting my sunglasses. There’s something comforting in seeing everyone out and about tucked up in scarves and hats, like we’re all being given a comforting hug from Autumn.
Autumn is really a time for reflection. It’s a time to reminisce on another summer gone by and a time to look forward in anticipation of a Christmas period to come. It’s about getting back into old, familiar habits but a year on, with new developments in your life. It’s about the Sunday night BBC Dramas getting good again, the return of the hot chocolate, and the annual firework displays in November. It’s a gentle time and we should relish in the autumnal surroundings we’re so lucky to experience year in year out. It quite simply is the best season of them all.
