Mists and mellow fruitfulness

The first day of October and it was suitably misty this morning; we are told that we have just said goodbye to the driest September the UK has seen since records began and one of the warmest.  And jolly nice it was too, although it played havoc with my wardrobe decisions: every day I'd find myself surreptitiously blotting the perspiration from my attractively over-heated face as I realised that it really wasn't the correct weather for a sheepskin lined parka on the school run, no matter how chilly it had been at quarter to seven that morning.  Well, I wouldn't want to risk being cold.
So I've been waiting for autumn to kick in; I love autumn, I love the emotion inherent in it, the wistfulness and the unavoidable sense of time passing.  I love that something as abstract as a season can fill you with yearning and an inexplicable longing.  That's why songwriters write about it: "Autumn Leaves",  "Autumn in New York" (Frank Sinatra sings it in sublime fashion here) " Early Autumn" and even Tom Waits' surreal sounding "November".
I wrote last year about my tendency to melancholy around Christmas- well, it begins to dawn upon me that maybe it's not just Christmas that makes me over-emotional, maybe I'm just like that all the time. And maybe I listen to the wrong sort of music if I want to be feeling cheery.....

But if I think about it for a minute, all the seasons are imbued with feeling (in my head, at least): winter is dour and sparks a stark stoicism- keep your head down and power through the bleak days, your eyes watering in a wind that is steel cold against your cheek and chills your soul. Dour indeed.  Spring as everybody knows, is associated with hope and beginnings, a freshness and yes, a cheeriness - no melancholy here, thank you very much; summer is joyous, wanton; drowsy and a little bit louche. Summer is sexy and makes you feel as if life can be lived like a Fellini film; and as summer comes to an end we start to feel the slow encroaching sadness and looming nostalgia of autumn, rolling lazily towards us as a low-lying mist until we find ourselves enveloped in its damp mournfulness.  Gazing back at the year with a thousand yard stare, we are unable as yet to tear our gaze away, unwilling to relinquish it, to surrender it to memory.
And then, at last, as it turns colder and the colour recedes, we can turn and look purposefully towards the coming festivities.


(addendum: to counteract any melancholy I may have sparked, I recommend a quick blast of this.
Earth, Wind and Fire. Now, go forth and dance into autumn.)