“It’s not worth being cold when the landscape looks so sad. I wish there was snow so it could at least be enjoyable.”
That’s what my friend said as we walked through campus bundled up with our winter layers. But it wasn’t just him, I feel like those are the most common responses to the Maine landscape in the wake of fall.
The paintbrush that works its way through the landscape, signifying an oncoming change, has left its creation to the wind and darkness. The leaves that once exploded with color swayed in swirling waves to the ground. The first day you noticed the lack of decoration covering the pointed, forever-reaching arms of the branches was the first day of the unofficial season between fall and winter.
This season lives in a liminal state between the final parting kiss of shimmering fall days and the unsympathetic snow, covering the sleeping landscape. Death has come and gone, the harvest has been celebrated and life is still. The migratory birds have long left behind their summer homes in search of another, much further away. A world between fall and winter.
This season might reflect the in-between in your life too. A feeling between bittersweet and joyful where words depart easily escaping ears. The days where light and sun are treasured resources and darkness creeps around the edges of your schedule watching and waiting. Nights aren’t cozy, instead impersonal routines underneath heavy covers, seeming more tempting with each day. The lights posted along every pass blind the stars overhead as they peek out from the humidity and haze of summer. As you burn your candle through the late hours, the train horn screams a low and haunted whistle into the night. Into a space between fall and winter.
With a low possibility of a snowy holiday season for some areas, this might be some version of the new normal for a while. The earth will sit still, awaiting snow’s arrival. The wind racing against the sky will continue to plague pink cheeks and numb hands, the heat of the fire reviving the lost limbs. The forests of bare-bones will remain, the color of the peak of life seeping out into the ground. It isn’t a terrible time, the space between fall and winter. It’s just something with a beauty of its own: an environment left in the wake of life.
