Indian summer

But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.
--James Whitcomb Riley

As faithful readers, you are well aware that the Northwest had a cold spring and a not-much-better summer. Winter now is fast approaching, and 2008 was beginning to feel like a wasted life, an awareness of lost opportunities with the chill of death already on the horizon. But Nature's taken pity, and granted us an Indian summer.

No one really knows where the term originated. I've always assumed it came from English colonists who observed the Indians harvesting their crops and preparing for winter. A more sinister theory is that an Indian summer provided war-like natives a spell of additional good weather during which they could continue their attacks on the colonists.

My own images of Indian summer, however, are all warm, happy and romantic. One of my books as a kid had a favorite illustration of a boy and his grandfather looking out over a hazy autumn cornfield, next to a pile of burning leaves that the grandfather had finished raking up. A huge harvest moon hung on the horizon. The old man was telling stories to the boy, while the boy stared out at the field and imagined the shocks of corn to be Indians dancing about their camp fire. Another book, a child's book of poetry by James Whitcomb Riley, had atmospheric drawings I liked looking at, while my mother read the accompanying poem about an Indiana farm boy's love of autumn days when the frost was on the pumpkin, and the corn was in the shock.

No shocks of corn around my house, I'm afraid, and the pumpkins are all stacked in front of Safeway. But when I go out, I feel the morning air still cold, the sun warm. The leaves dazzle with all the colors of fall -- yellow-green, yellow, orange, red, burnt umber, brown. Across the street, a neighbor's tree turns a brilliant scarlet for a week, before the leaves drop and blow away. Mixed smells of dead leaves and smoke hang in the air.

The squirrels frantically gather nuts, and squirrel them away. The morning sky shines a brilliant blue, far clearer and deeper than any hue of summer. College students walk toward the university with purposeful strides, invigorated by the crisp early morning. Old people seem more alert and friendly, out walking their dogs.

As the day goes on, temperatures warm into the upper 60's, and walking in a sweater becomes uncomfortably warm. At the same time, the sky starts to cloud up. I fear rain, and winter. But the next morning brings yet another brilliant day of Indian summer.

Some philosophers say life seems precious only because we know we are mortal. Knowing that death is certain, but that for now we are alive, provides an occasional sense of intense joy that would otherwise escape us. The same with the seasons. Hawaii has no Indian summer. Every day in Hawaii is summer, and every day is the same. Who cares if it is July or January? But Indian summer to us in the Northwest is intensely pleasurable; we know that we're living on borrowed time, that we're enjoying one final fling before we fall into the cold and dark of the months of winter.

This year's mid-October is beautiful and exhilarating, even yet more beautiful because we sense November looming ahead.