As much as the lecher in me has appreciated the summer (French women in summer dresses are just the BEST), the artist in me is already looking forward to Fall.
It's my favorite season, the one in which the world's cycles seem most in evidence. Plants fade and fall in on themselves to sleep for a while, before awakening as seeds. Squirrels start to store food and bears start looking for a cool cave to hibernate in. Americans swap their baseball hats for football hats. Me, I just look forward to being able to walk through forests that are doing their color-dance thang. Vincent Van Gogh painted down in Arles, where there really isn't much of a Fall, and he got off on the color-dance anyway. Can you imagine what he might have painted if his brother hadn't been such a cheapskate and had sprung for a Fall vacation for him in Vermont? The mind boggles. As much as it may mean that the women will be wearing more clothing (a negative), I look forward to seeing and appreciating their selection of Fall colors (a positive). They're usually more subtle, more refined and 'earthy' than the fashion colors of Spring and Summer. Anyway, I'm just sitting here in one of my old cafe haunts in Saint Michel, before walking back to Ile Saint-Louis, and noticing that the trees across the street at the Cluny museum are already beginning to turn. And it's not even technically Fall yet. Maybe they know something we don't about the coming Winter. Whatever. For those of you who also love Fall, here's Bruce Cockburn's song of the season. It was originally written immediately after reading a book of Robert Graves' poetry, and reflects some of that poet's sensibilities. But it still 'captures' Fall for me. I first heard this song live, before Bruce had even released his first album, in Toronto, and during the Fall. It's been my 'soundtrack' for the season ever since. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cef5HL_8ISo <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cef5HL_8ISo>
