Contemplating Fall

It’s starting to feel a lot like fall, and fall is my favourite time of year! Kids cluster on street corners to talk about the upcoming school year, birds flock and gorge themselves on berries as they get ready for their journey south, a new round of book launches and writing related events begins to fill the September calendar, and fall fabrics are adorn quilt shops along with a new batch of projects and workshops.

I spent Saturday with a good friend. We spent three hours wandering around a quilt shop in NW Calgary and had a wonderful time. We fondled fabrics, leafed through books, and admired the fantastic quilting projects on display. I spent very little money there – I have a room full of unfinished projects – but that doesn’t mean a person can’t plan for the future. (However, in all seriousness, I need to decide who bequeath my material stash to in my will because I will never live long enough to sew all that stuff.) We had lunch at a nearby coffee shop and came home tired but inspired and ready to go on a “quilt shop hop” in September.

Fall is a settling in time, a time to batten down the hatches both literally and figuratively, in preparation for the long winter ahead. It is as much a mental process as a physical activity and the importance of “getting ready for winter” is both cultural and climatic. I wonder what replaces this urgent and productive need to get ready for winter in countries that experience the same climate all year long.

In the “great white north” some practical preparation is necessary – boots, hats, mittens and coats replace hoodies and sandals, snow shovel replaces hose and watering can – but much of the preparation is psychological. We need to wrap our heads around long cold nights and shortened days, and the inability to go anywhere without donning layers of clothes, hence the need to settle in with an interesting project (or a good, sturdy book – something more intense than summer beach reading.) Salad and barbeque recipes are replaced with recipes for hearty soups and stews. Light and easy summer meals are swapped for food that sticks to the ribs.

Right now, during these last long days of summer, even as the days shorten and the night temperatures drop, the scent of fall is in the air and there is an urge to preserve something – vegetables, berries, pickles, chutney – and a desire to fluff up the comforter and put flannel sheets on the beds. That will all come soon enough, but not for a few more weeks – we need a few more weeks of this glorious summer.