The Autumn Carnival
Even as a kid with summer breaks spent at the pool, beach, and mountains (In that order), I always preferred autumn. Summers in Virginia can get so damn humid that you feel like you're walking through a sauna; this was especially evident in the final weeks trudging to school where even though the calendar said it wasn't summer yet, it sure as shit felt like it. By July, the streets literally become blisteringly hot and walking barefoot on asphalt to the pool meant having black tar seared into the soles of your feet. Winter was the polar opposite (pun slightly intended?) with biting winds over those rolling suburban hills starting in November. The Christmases usually weren't white but snowfall would hit full-force by January and February and, in some cases, stay as late as March. Virginia's southern humidity made that snow thick and unrelenting when it did take shape; if you ever wanted to know what a humid winter felt like, this was the place for it.
So summer and winter were fine but autumn always won out.
The climate, I'm sure, is probably the lead factor for it all. The entire Mid-Atlantic really transforms by October with the trees forming an impressionist canopy as fields of orange, yellow, and brown blended together with the usual evergreen along the treetops and eventually littering the lawns below them. Things start to cool off by mid-September but to the point where light jackets and flannel shirts become the norm, the heavy coats not figuring into the equation until months later.
Another big part of this autumnal appreciation has got to be the return to school. By those dog days of summer, I was always ready to go back to school; I had friends in my neighborhood, sure, but the hyperkinetic social dynamic present at school had no comparisons. When you're a kid, everything already feels heightened: Every emotion running at maximum, the stakes for even the most minute events and instances feeling like life or death, every day with its own possibility for adventure. I've always loved that environment and it's probably why I still work in a school (albeit a university) now.
Which is probably the biggest association I make with autumn, at least mnemonically: Memories of school from tracing hand turkeys and making art with elbow macaroni in elementary school. Memories of homecoming dances (I feel like literally ever homecoming dance closed out with Green Day's Time of Your Life) or marching in the parade through the surrounding neighborhood with the guitar ensemble covering AC/DC's Black in Black and Third Eye Blind's Semi-Charmed Life.
All the big stuff I loved about school happened in the autumn; by the time that winter quarter rolled around, I was already hoping for snow days to get out of class (legitimately, anyway). But those autumn months were it, the vibrancy of seeing old friends once again and the love of the routine after months of lazy summer days. There was always that little rush visiting school for the open house, getting your locker for the year, comparing schedules with friends and seeing if there were any of the same classes.
College was a bit different in that regard; registering for classes yourselves so far in advance meant you had a pretty good idea of what you were in for before setting foot on campus. Every August coming back to Christopher Newport University, the dorms would smell vaguely like the pool as they had just been cleaned and bleached. And going to school at the southern end of the state within a short driving distance of the beach meant that it wouldn't really start feeling like autumn until October. It would not be uncommon to go to the beach well into the season, the ocean warmed after an entire summer baking under the sun and the annual Neptune Festival with little booths selling alligator bites and fried Oreos lined up along the boardwalk like a coastal county fair.
It's always weird to me seeing colleges that have their homecoming celebrations later into the school year (Ironically, like George Mason which has theirs in February). For me, whenever I think of autumn, it feels like coming home all by itself.
So summer and winter were fine but autumn always won out.
The climate, I'm sure, is probably the lead factor for it all. The entire Mid-Atlantic really transforms by October with the trees forming an impressionist canopy as fields of orange, yellow, and brown blended together with the usual evergreen along the treetops and eventually littering the lawns below them. Things start to cool off by mid-September but to the point where light jackets and flannel shirts become the norm, the heavy coats not figuring into the equation until months later.
Another big part of this autumnal appreciation has got to be the return to school. By those dog days of summer, I was always ready to go back to school; I had friends in my neighborhood, sure, but the hyperkinetic social dynamic present at school had no comparisons. When you're a kid, everything already feels heightened: Every emotion running at maximum, the stakes for even the most minute events and instances feeling like life or death, every day with its own possibility for adventure. I've always loved that environment and it's probably why I still work in a school (albeit a university) now.
Which is probably the biggest association I make with autumn, at least mnemonically: Memories of school from tracing hand turkeys and making art with elbow macaroni in elementary school. Memories of homecoming dances (I feel like literally ever homecoming dance closed out with Green Day's Time of Your Life) or marching in the parade through the surrounding neighborhood with the guitar ensemble covering AC/DC's Black in Black and Third Eye Blind's Semi-Charmed Life.
All the big stuff I loved about school happened in the autumn; by the time that winter quarter rolled around, I was already hoping for snow days to get out of class (legitimately, anyway). But those autumn months were it, the vibrancy of seeing old friends once again and the love of the routine after months of lazy summer days. There was always that little rush visiting school for the open house, getting your locker for the year, comparing schedules with friends and seeing if there were any of the same classes.
College was a bit different in that regard; registering for classes yourselves so far in advance meant you had a pretty good idea of what you were in for before setting foot on campus. Every August coming back to Christopher Newport University, the dorms would smell vaguely like the pool as they had just been cleaned and bleached. And going to school at the southern end of the state within a short driving distance of the beach meant that it wouldn't really start feeling like autumn until October. It would not be uncommon to go to the beach well into the season, the ocean warmed after an entire summer baking under the sun and the annual Neptune Festival with little booths selling alligator bites and fried Oreos lined up along the boardwalk like a coastal county fair.
It's always weird to me seeing colleges that have their homecoming celebrations later into the school year (Ironically, like George Mason which has theirs in February). For me, whenever I think of autumn, it feels like coming home all by itself.
