Amy Lu's View

I’m a pretty big fan of Minnesota Public Radio (although if you had told 20 year-old-me this was my future, I would have scorned your prediction). I appreciate many of their stories, features, and hosts, but I don’t remember ever being as interested in their content as when they recently aired a story about why lilacs were blooming in late summer.

I tend not to be terribly observant about my physical surroundings, but I HAD noticed that our lilacs were blooming again in late August, and it was weirding me out a bit. It was messing with my sense of time (had I time-traveled back to spring?) and felt slightly apocalyptic. 

The MPR story was very reassuring. It turns out (at least according to my interpretation of their story, and of course you should do your own research) this is something that happens sometimes when weather conditions–rainfall and temperature–are just right (or wrong?). And while these conditions are unusual and the lilac blooms are a sign that the bushes are under some stress, it doesn’t signal anything too catastrophic (and as stress reactions go, I wish I bloomed with lilacs rather than getting super sweaty…or maybe not). The story didn’t even mention “global warming.” 

Like the lilacs, I’m confused by, and about, the changing of the seasons. I know this is hardly a unique take–for me, or for our culture at large. “Where did the summer go?” many of us joke and cry. The New York Times even had a piece recently on the “September Scaries.”

It’s not that I don’t like fall, or that I love everything about summer. As a non-parent, I don’t even have the whole back-to-school thing to contend with. There are many little reasons and irritations that the onset of fall fills me with low level angst and melancholy, but I think it primarily comes down to the uneasiness caused by such an in your face exhibition of the transience of life. 

The change from summer to fall isn’t a clear, clean switch. It’s an often murky transition (wildly changing weather being the most obvious example) and much of what we associate with fall (or any season) is arbitrary. Why can’t I wear bright colors in the fall? What universal law decrees that pumpkin spice flavored treats can’t be available year round (after all, they aren’t really flavored by actual pumpkins, but by chemicals that are constantly available). 

I think our collective and individual “rules” about the seasons are small rituals that help us cope with the change. To the best of my knowledge, we can’t control the passage of time, but perhaps we can affect how we experience it. 

When I started writing this post, I thought I was going to proclaim that I was going to resist fall as long as possible and desperately cling to summer. None of this “meteorological fall starts on September 1” or “fall starts the day after Labor Day” nonsense for me–I’m clinging to summer until the equinox, at the very least. 

But now I’m realizing I can put the Judgemental J dimension of my Myers Brigg personality aside and embrace the messiness of ushering in fall. I can’t stop the days getting shorter or the weather getting colder, but I can let summer and fall blend together, at least for a while. If I’m in the mood to wear a bright flower print while I marvel at the display of fall leaves, why not? I can have the best of both seasons–or at least try to. 

Ecclesiastes/The Byrds tell us “There is a season turn, turn, turn.” That’s poetic and wise. But when I turn while dancing, I frequently turn in the wrong direction. And yeah, I also frequently do that while driving and walking (okay, any time I need some geographic grounding in the physical world there’s a good chance I’ll head the wrong way). So why not embrace my “wrong” turns as we’re headed towards fall? I’ll turn with the seasons…but there’s likely to be some back and forths and recalculations.