The Circle Game

Toni Lucas, Columnist, Pincher Creek Voice

C.Davis photo

October is here, and with it crisp, cool days, talk of turkey and pumpkin recipes, and getting ready for that inevitable, four letter word, snow.

I have lived in Alberta most of my life, and I never am ready for the winter season to begin.  Even if I have the coats and the boots ready, checked the furnace filter, empty and put away the garden hoses, and all the other details of life that I have to check off to say "I am winter ready".  That is not what I mean.


What I mean is I cling like the last leaf on the tree to the warmer days.  I pine for the days of summer, that seemed too short, both in duration and number.  I look at the garden that has been plucked of its vegetables and miss the stealing of tomatoes, fresh from the vine.  I yearn for one more handful of berries taken out from under a bright blue sky.

I know every year, that it comes, inevitably. It should hardly shocking.  Somehow, though it is. That day when I first see my breath, the frost glaze the grass, and I hear it crunch underfoot makes me wince.  I hurt inside when I see the leaves whither and blow away, the grass brown and stiffen. I grieve for another summer, gone to time even as I enjoy the unique beauty that surrounds this season.

I can appreciate the beauty of fall, the glory of the changing colors, special tastes of food that I have associated since childhood with September and October. I have fond memories of looking through glass, thick with frost, forming fantastic designs on the window of the school bus, and in puddles that I would come across.   Then comes the magic of the first snow fall.  And magic it is to me.  I glory in the idea that each individual flake that comes down is unique, different from the billions of others that are coming down in a soft blanket that coats everything in a dazzling blanket of fresh crisp white snow and once again gives me a fresh outlook on the beauty that surrounds me.

Embracing the joys of each season is something I strive to do, but fall is the hardest for me. In seeing the whithering away of the plants, the shortening of the days, the stealthy creeping back of the cooler weather I become too involved with the realities of getting ready for winter before I can truly appreciate the majesty of what is going on around me.  Poised as the transitional point between the hustle and bustle of summer and the stark and introspective time that I have in winter fall becomes short-changed in my full appreciation of the season.