Fall is my tug-of-war season. It’s the start of so many new things: a new school year and the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. There’s so much excitement and energy as kids return to classrooms, students fill campuses and fall sports like football take center stage. I love being back on campus myself, meeting new students, and learning why they’re at college, and what they hope to study. Equipped with a crop of new pens and a fresh calendar, I don’t mind leaving behind the sun-drenched days of August behind for the start of fall semester. Apples ripen on the trees in time to slice and dip in honey as a custom for Rosh Hashanah to symbolize the hope for a good, sweet, and abundant new year.
Alongside the celebrations of the sacred and educational calendar, I also feel a pull toward rest. The leaves are yellowing, grasses dry and brittle, and the fields are ready for harvest. Summer’s restless energy of growth is waning. Now that we’ve marked the autumnal equinox, the hours of daylight wane. While there’s a lot of demands on my attention, the elemental arc of this season calls for respite. More than once, I’ve whined about the collision of the season that announces the end of growth and light with September’s call for a new start. I’m thrilled for the rush of the school year, but I also want a nap. Summer was a joyful, nearly unbridled season of blue skies, high sun, and long days. In Montana, no one in their right mind wastes the short season of summer when there are trails to hike, rivers to run, and tents to pitch.
Now, the sun is setting earlier and earlier each day. It’s no longer possible to consider going on a paddle after dinner, but I’m not grumbling. It’s easier to convince my kids to go to bed now that it’s no longer light at 10 p.m. I try to locate some form of balance between the demands September and the impulse to rest and make plans for hibernation. At times, that looks like hyperphagia – like the bears, I too have a strong urge to increase my caloric intake as the temperatures dip, and pumpkin spice is delicious.
Perhaps I experience this seasonal tug-of-war so profoundly because in northwest Montana the abundance of the natural landscape invites us into this change. Unlike urban areas that have built over and on top the environment, often eliminating or subverting the cues that illustrate the seasonal shift, we occupy a habitat that commands us to pay attention. We watch the aspen leaves begin to fade to golden, and many of us anticipate the larch needle change, taking to the mountains to watch the hillsides pulse with a golden glow. The elk rut delivers drama in the high country, birds begin to migrate, and the chatter of squirrels ring through the forests as they frantically build their middens. Autumn offers us an opportunity to prepare for the cold, the dark, and the quiet. So, as I pencil school field trips to press cider on the calendar and increase my caffeine intake before I grade essays, I also find those delicate moments that invite the pause.
I’ve come to learn that between this space of new beginnings and the desire to rest, the tug-of-war isn’t exactly a battle but more so an offering. Either way, I can’t lose.