seasons change

A glorious autumn day in Durham. Though change is
in the air, it doesn't stop the sun from shining
--at least today. 

Trees shedding leaves in
Pickering, North Yorkshire.

One of the things striking about being in England now is seeing the season change. How trees and other foliage so vibrantly green three months ago are changing color. The landscape is speckled with yellows, browns and a splattering of deep oranges and dark auburn that characterizes the autumn season.

In the Philippines, where the two seasons are characterized by dry and wet while it stays generally hot and humid throughout, there’s less of a chance to mentally calibrate to the shifting sands of nature’s clock.

Here, I can’t help but feel how time and space are turning—and I along with it. The light changes. There’s a crisp chill in the air. Signs that transformation is afoot, that it is inevitable. 

Nature marks the end of what I had envisioned as my summer of love. It is time, she says, to shed the old leaves, once so lush and verdant, but which are now browning and must eventually die and fall. She reminds me, this is the way of the world. I cannot hold on.

Along with this sad—sad, because we mere humans grieve the passing of things—news, there’s the promise that after the cold frost of winter, when everything appears to die, but only deeply slumbers, comes the inevitable reviving spring.