Golden autumn

Autumn -- in our poetic tradition -- generally symbolizes waning, aging, ending, a premonition of death.

And yet it's so beautiful.  A beauty not always shared by our own waning and aging human bodies.

I mulled over these thoughts this afternoon while making my daily four-mile walk through and around the University of Washington campus.  We've had a warm year, here in the Northwest Corner, and the warmth has continued into the fall.  A day of rain now and then, finally, but the "rainy season," as we know it in these parts, still hasn't begun.

It was sunny, as I left the house shortly after 3 p.m.  Not the blazing sun we have at that time in summer, but a golden sun filtered through additional layers of atmosphere.  But sunny, nonetheless.  The sky was blue, the sun was gold, and the shadows were already lengthening in mid-afternoon.

I wore a t-shirt and a light sweater, because my phone told me it would be in the mid-50s outside.  But the sun was still warm, and when not in shade I felt a bit overdressed.  Some folks on campus were wearing coats and jackets they probably had grabbed before leaving home in the chilly morning; others were wearing shorts and t-shirts.

The light was golden.  Autumn flowers -- I always forget how many flowers bloom in autumn -- colored the landscape.  Horse chestnuts (buckeyes if you're from the wrong part of the country) rolled underfoot, reminding me of childhood wars and battles.  Leaves on some trees were just beginning to change yellow, pink, red.  The air was crisp, even as the sun was warm -- that same peculiar combination of temperatures one experiences at high altitude. 

The campus was crowded with students.  These days, students' faces display seriousness of purpose combined with displays of quiet friendliness among themselves.  Observing them makes me happy, relieved that whatever future lies ahead probably will be in good hands.

As I often do, I stopped at the coffee shop just inside the front door of Suzzallo library, and ordered a coffee and muffin.  Kids packed the room, drinking coffee, talking, and poring over electronic gadgets in what -- back in my day -- was, as I recall, a "reserve book room" where students were granted short-term checkouts for certain books assigned in classes.  Books to be read in a hushed atmosphere.  In those days, I would have found it incredible that coffee drinking would be not only permitted, but enabled -- on the first floor of Suzzallo. 

After a half hour, I resumed my walk, circling through the dormitory areas on the eastern side of campus, looping back to Suzzallo, and then toward home through the recently renovated Rainier Vista. 

The campus has changed much since I first began graduate school -- but in many ways it has remained remarkably the same.  I enjoyed it in the spring time of my life, and enjoy it even more, perhaps, now in the fall.  I arrived home feeling happy with school, happy with the students, happy with myself -- and happy with the beauty of Seattle in Autumn.

Oliver Sacks, a month before his death this past August, recalled the story of a friend who had gone out for a walk one beautiful day with Samuel Beckett, the Irish playwright (Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape, et al.) -- that same cheerful fellow who directed that his tombstone should be "any colour, so long as it's grey."   Sacks's friend casually asked, “Doesn’t a day like this make you glad to be alive?”

Beckett replied, “I wouldn’t go as far as that.” 

I love the story, but I'm totally with Oliver's friend.  Today, I realized, wasn't an autumn day for worrying about waning or aging.  It was an autumn day that made me supremely grateful to be alive.