Autumn People, Thinking Autumn Thoughts
Wherever you are, wherever you live, your capacity for wonder is up to you.
In his masterpiece of short stories, The October Country, the late, great Ray Bradbury (who I write about in Chapter 8 of The Barbarian in You), begins with this magical potion of words:
The October Country… that country where it is always turning later in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusk and twilights linger, and mid-nights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain…
After my workout this afternoon, I ringed my sweat-soaked shirt on the lawn, hung it up on the pull-up bar to dry, and walked around the neighborhood so the sun could blaze on my fifty-year-old pecs.
Despite basking in the glories of a sweaty, shirtless, chest-glistening day, nothing today felt like fall. You see, I live in Los Angeles—a mega-city lacking the wonders of fall.
But despite living in this city of noir and dysfunction where hot Santa Ana winds, burning fires, hovering smog, and fields of concrete replace the cinnamon wishes and pumpkin dreams of my New England youth, I can still feel the wonders of fall.
"How can I feel autumnal wonder in callous LA?" you might be asking yourself. My answer is that "autumn people” and “autumn thoughts” don’t require actually being in an autumn place.
Ray wrote The October Country in Los Angeles. In fact, he wrote all his books—many of which celebrate the wonders of fall—in LA.
But Ray didn’t grow up in LA. He spent his childhood in Waukegan, Illinois. And as a writer, he always wrote with the wonders of Waukegan in his heart. (Read Something Wicked Way This Way Comes or Dandelion Wine to get a better sense of Ray's mid-western spirit, nostalgia, and soul.)
Like Ray, I too didn’t grow up in LA. High school was in Rhode Island where fall always felt like fall. The smell of cold dew on the football field, salt-tasting winds from the sea, and dead leaves scraping like a thousand tumbleweeds across the asphalt at dusk.
And though I’m no longer seeing my breath in the October cold of my youth, I can still drift away thanks to the gift we all possess: our imagination.
Sitting in my LA home library surrounded by books and the scent of a bourbon candle, I can open up The October Country and drift off to the rolling hills of New England, where golden apples, billowing mists, and early-season frosts shiver my soul with delight.
Maine
Two weeks ago, I traveled to New England—specifically, Maine—a far and away land of flannel-clad dads and the LL Bean women who love them.
While there, I spent more than a few hours in my dear friends' home library—which even has a fireplace. Their house sits adjacent to a flat-rocked beach with bobbing lobster pot buoys, chilly nor’easter winds, and blinking lighthouses clinging to their dark jettied shores.
While walking alone on that flat-rocked shore, I picked up a smooth rock, rubbed off the wet sand, and gripped the rock in my hand. I felt its energy enter me. I breathed deeply to absorb its magic and then tossed it into the bay with a piece of my heart attached.
Watching it skip out to sea with a piece of me, I kept a piece of it in return—a piece of the Maine fall to fuel my imagination back in LA.
If you can travel for a feeling, then do so. But if you can’t, fill that feeling by other means; specifically, through your imagination coupled by your favorite art. Beyond the sunsets and stars, try movies, songs, books, or a solitary prayer. By opening our imaginations to wonder, we can live a more spiritual (and magical) existence.
I don’t know about you, but I want to feel my existence. My aim (and likely yours) is to have more good feelings than bad. Thus, the idea of a New England fall feeds my soul as much as actually experiencing a New England fall (almost as much).
Wherever we are, wherever we live, our capacity for wonder is up to us. Let your imagination be your passport.
So my barbarian friends, go ahead and close the blinds, light the candle, and journey into the mists of your favorite worlds and reap the wonders such travels bring you.
To set you on your way, here are two of my favorite Ray Bradbury passages.
Till next time, barbarians, may your imagination always take you north of the wall.
Ed
From “The Lake” (short story in The October Country)
It was September. In the last days when things are getting sad for no reason… All of the hot-dog stands were boarded up with strips of golden planking, sealing in all the mustard, onion, meat odors of the long, joyful summer. It was like nailing summer into a series of coffins. One by one the places slammed their covers down, padlocked their doors, and the wind came and touched the sand, blowing away all of the million footprints of July and August….
From “The Emissary” (short story in The October Country)
Martin knew it was autumn again, for Dog ran into the house bringing wind and frost and a smell of apples turned to cider under trees. In dark clock-springs of hair, Dog fetched goldenrod, dust of farewell-summer, acorn-husk, hair of squirrel, feather of departed robin, sawdust from fresh-cut cordwood, and leaves like charcoals shaken from a blaze of maple trees. Dog jumped. Showers of brittle fern, blackberry vine, marsh-grass sprang over the bed where Martin shouted. No doubt, no doubt of it at all, this incredible beast was October!
Comments