The feel of warmth from camp fires roasting marshmallows. The aroma of turkey cooking in the oven. The sight of browns and oranges and reds and greens in the trees. The sound of a leaf’s crunch underfoot. The taste of pumpkin, naturally. The sense of summer gone, winter too soon arriving, yet an interlude of good weather and even better holidays.
We don’t have Fall here in Mexico. There’s a word for it (otoño) and officially it is a season, but otherwise hard to distinguish from the rest of the year. The plants flower, fruit and drop their flora when they will. The bugs are always with us, although the mosquitos do seem a little easier to swat nowadays. This close to the equator, the daily dose of sunshine is nearly a constant. Oldtimer expats swear it changes by many hours, perhaps body memories of days gone by in the States or Canada.
We expats mostly know the rhythm of the rainy and dry seasons, which just tells you whether you need to remember to water your garden plants. As retirees, we have no work rhythm either, just six Saturdays and a Sunday (for those hold to a Sabbath of some sort). This makes the traditional holidays almost sneak up on you, as you lack those climatic hints and Mexican culture hasn’t quite embraced the omnipresent marketing NOB (are the Xmas decorations up yet?).
Fall always was my favorite season. Perhaps living near DC, this was inevitable, since Fall is the one season where the swampy Potomac marshland that became the nation’s capital is habitable. In Fall the tourists were (mostly) gone, the students were (mostly) in school, the politicians were (mostly) away campaigning, and the money was (mostly) spent (Note: the federal fiscal year ends on 30 September), so there was a normalcy to match the decent weather.
I wouldn’t say I miss Fall. I can still visit it whenever I want. When we took care of the grandkids last week, the leaves were turning, and that last morning, before the crack of dawn flight out of BWI, the dawn air was crisp and clear. We’ll be back again in November for early Thanksgiving, and those tastes of Fall are plenty. When the climate is as special as it is here lakeside, the sameness of the days are a blessing, not a curse.