[Weekend] Autumn Rears Its Beautiful Head
Sep. 13th, 2009 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jon_chaissonIt's nearing halfway through September (already!) and the Bay Area has finally received one of its signs of upcoming season change: the thunderstorm. It's a rarity in these parts, and waking up to a loud rumble of thunder at four in the morning was actually a welcome change for me. Amusingly enough my first reaction was not of surprise, but that of tradition--someone in my family getting up during an overnight storm to close all the windows. I half expected to hear my mom coming into the living room to shut the two windows and pop into the bedroom to wake us up and make sure we did the same. I sat there yesterday morning, using ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
emmalyon's ticking watch to count the seconds between flashes and rumbles, amused and comforted by nature's meteorological unrest.
Autumn around these parts is subtle, as we don't necessarily get the foliage here. There's a gradual lowering of temperature, the fog stays inland a little longer, the days get shorter (Emm and I will eventually head out to the train stop when it's still dark), and, if it's a wet season, we start getting rain more frequently. Visually it looks the same, only grayer.
And of course, there's the influx of students. There's a middle school up the street from our apartment, and I can hear their bells ringing every now and again when I'm working from home. And when I'm heading home from work, whether taking the underground up to the foot of Market Street or taking the 47 bus, the modes of transportation are filled with young kids heading home or over to the mall to hang out. There's also the changing of the apartments--the moving out of other tenants and moving in of others, mostly students going to the art school down the block.
Tourism? Well, it's starting to die down a bit. We'll still get the occasional influx of people on the weekend brandishing maps on my street corner, trying to figure out how to get to Chinatown without climbing up the hill, but it's nowhere near as busy as it was a month ago, when we couldn't head to our Safeway down the block without bumping into them. Eventually we'll talk ourselves into walking over to Pier 39 again for food and other things, knowing our patience won't be tried as much when we try to navigate the sidewalks.
Then there's the football season. Yes, as a matter of fact I am happy it's here! After years upon years of not really getting into it, I gradually grew to enjoy it, and though I'm out here in California, I'm still a dedicated Patriots fan. I don't necessarily watch all the games--most of the time Emm and I have it on while we're doing other things like writing or knitting or reading or what have you--but it's great background and it's yet another part of why I love this season so much.
We do take roadtrips at this time of the year, of course...as said, we don't really get the foliage, so there's not much to see visually in that respect. However, there's something to be said about apple picking in the quiet valley down in Watsonville, strolling down the cool sidewalks of downtown Santa Rosa, enjoying the views and wines of Napa and Sonoma. The streets are quieter and the highways emptier, but there's still plenty to do and see. Things don't so much close up for the winter here as much as they merely change a bit to suit the season.
To me, the change of season still retains everything I remember about as a kid, as a teen, and as an adult. It's a different kind of enjoyment of life, different from the Frostian New England autumn but retaining that end-of-year winding down. A time to get a bit more serious about future endeavors, hunker down on projects one may currently be working on, become a bit more patient about things. And a time to appreciate life a little more than usual.
emmalyon's ticking watch to count the seconds between flashes and rumbles, amused and comforted by nature's meteorological unrest.Autumn around these parts is subtle, as we don't necessarily get the foliage here. There's a gradual lowering of temperature, the fog stays inland a little longer, the days get shorter (Emm and I will eventually head out to the train stop when it's still dark), and, if it's a wet season, we start getting rain more frequently. Visually it looks the same, only grayer.
And of course, there's the influx of students. There's a middle school up the street from our apartment, and I can hear their bells ringing every now and again when I'm working from home. And when I'm heading home from work, whether taking the underground up to the foot of Market Street or taking the 47 bus, the modes of transportation are filled with young kids heading home or over to the mall to hang out. There's also the changing of the apartments--the moving out of other tenants and moving in of others, mostly students going to the art school down the block.
Tourism? Well, it's starting to die down a bit. We'll still get the occasional influx of people on the weekend brandishing maps on my street corner, trying to figure out how to get to Chinatown without climbing up the hill, but it's nowhere near as busy as it was a month ago, when we couldn't head to our Safeway down the block without bumping into them. Eventually we'll talk ourselves into walking over to Pier 39 again for food and other things, knowing our patience won't be tried as much when we try to navigate the sidewalks.
Then there's the football season. Yes, as a matter of fact I am happy it's here! After years upon years of not really getting into it, I gradually grew to enjoy it, and though I'm out here in California, I'm still a dedicated Patriots fan. I don't necessarily watch all the games--most of the time Emm and I have it on while we're doing other things like writing or knitting or reading or what have you--but it's great background and it's yet another part of why I love this season so much.
We do take roadtrips at this time of the year, of course...as said, we don't really get the foliage, so there's not much to see visually in that respect. However, there's something to be said about apple picking in the quiet valley down in Watsonville, strolling down the cool sidewalks of downtown Santa Rosa, enjoying the views and wines of Napa and Sonoma. The streets are quieter and the highways emptier, but there's still plenty to do and see. Things don't so much close up for the winter here as much as they merely change a bit to suit the season.
To me, the change of season still retains everything I remember about as a kid, as a teen, and as an adult. It's a different kind of enjoyment of life, different from the Frostian New England autumn but retaining that end-of-year winding down. A time to get a bit more serious about future endeavors, hunker down on projects one may currently be working on, become a bit more patient about things. And a time to appreciate life a little more than usual.
