Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Traditionally, today is the first day of autumn, although I imagine the constellations don’t always fall into line every year. Regardless, this is the day I celebrate the disappearance of summer and the arrival of fall.

In reality, it isn’t a one-day thing. Here in southwestern Michigan some trees have been slowly turning color for a couple weeks, at first making me think autumn would be early and winter would be long. However, my neighbor tells me the season proceeds about the same pace every year.

I think I’m too used to city life, where autumn shows up one weekend and disappears. She’s like a casual date whose affections are fickle.

Here on the river, I watch every little nuance of change, every subtle shift of color; and I realize that if autumn were a record, she would be an extended play sort of thing. Today, the colors of some trees sing for attention, but next week there’ll be others and even more the week after that. By season’s end, it’s the entire chorus that overwhelms.

My neighbor says the best week will be toward the end of October; and, since she has lived here over three quarters of a century, who am I to argue? I’ll take it, and realize that city dwellers catch only a glimpse of the real season as it struggles to exist at all amid concrete canyons and blacktopped parking lots.