Shades of Autumn, Forebodings of Winter
October 15th, 2004,Shortly after our long trip from California to Minnesota in July, we set up our household in Northfield, Minnesota. We had bought a townhouse near St. Olaf College, where my wife will begin teaching in February. We began the challenging tasks of unpacking and setting up the house, caring for our then-four-month-old daughter, and continuing to work. I telecommuted for my old employer until the end of August, while my wife handled most of our daughter’s care that month.
We had arrived in Northfield expecting to find a very livable small town, and for the most part we have not been disappointed. It’s the third consecutive college town that we’ve lived in, having first met in Princeton, New Jersey, where we got married in 2001, moved to Davis, California in 2002, and then to Northfield this year.
We continue to mourn our favorite aspects of California, however: the exotic plants and amazing gardens, the mild weather and lack of a need for bulky clothing, the smell of the Pacific air in the morning, and flowers year-round. There will be no flowers coming up in December this year, no daffodils in February. We will have to wait until April.
We also miss being able to bike and walk easily about town. In Davis we lived very close to downtown and could walk most places. Davis is unusually bike-friendly, with lots of bike lanes and separate bike paths through parks. It is an exception to most of California, where the car is king. Although we can walk to St. Olaf where we live now, the downtown is inconveniently distant on foot, and the trip home is uphill. You can bike in Northfield, too, but not during the winter (unless you are truly hardy). The car is king here in the Upper Midwest as well, and people here exhibit the habit, now unconscious, of driving everywhere they go.
Now that we are at the height of autumn, though, I’m struck by one great benefit of Northfield over Davis: the stark change in seasons and the beauty that accompanies it. Many trees lose their leaves in northern California, but most of the Golden State lacks the burst of color that you get here. As temperatures decline and days get shorter, the Upper Midwest displays a rush of color. The maples are turning wonderful shades of yellow, orange, and red, the sumacs are a beautiful crimson, and other trees are joining in as well.
Not only is autumn more beautiful here than in California, but the end of summer creates a different state of mind, one that I remember now from my many years of living in Minnesota. I am aware of it now on this gray October day when a rainy wind is stripping the leaves from the trees. It is an awareness or feeling of what the poets call mutability, of continual cyclic change, the endless end of one thing and the beginning of another, which leads to an awareness of mortality. It is the aesthetic of impermanence. I was aware of this feeling in California when the spring flowers faded and again when the winter rains arrived, but here it is stronger. I remember it now as an emotion felt strongly in youth, reinforced by school and my own reading.
With the coming of autumn, of course, winter is not far behind. In fact, in this region winter remains a haunting presence the entire year. Although summers are warm, freak weather can send snowflakes flying in almost any part of the year. This August, one cold night brought frost north of Interstate 94, damaging many crops.
Winter haunts the mind as well during warmer months. As I drive through an intersection, I often have visions and feelings of the same place in winter, snow piled on the sides of the road, my body cold in those cold, cold first minutes in a car before it has warmed. As I walk down an alley, I remember the cold winter wind in my face. As I visit a movie theater, I recall a visit to the same place on a frigid night, shivering as I walk to the entrance, later starting the car with difficulty.
If autumn is a time of change and a reminder of mortality’s existence, then winter is closer to an experience of mortality itself. Wallace Stevens’ poetry uses winter as a metaphor for death and nothingness. Nick Carraway, the narrator of Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and a Minnesotan, said that he was “a little sad with the feeling of those long winters.” As Garrison Keillor commented, Minnesotans stay humble because each winter Mother Nature makes a run at trying to kill us.
When I lived outside of the Upper Midwest, I often said that I did not miss the coldest nights of winter. That was certainly true. Nevertheless, I am dreading winter’s approach less and less now as California fades in memory. I look at St. Olaf’s hills and see great sledding opportunities. I look forward to the Christmas season. I vow to get out into the woods and make my way through ice-crusted snow.
Older and softer now, possessed of and by a family, I will probably have a stronger inclination to hibernate inside on winter nights. Why fight the cold? Get out during the day, revel in the winter sun and the beauty of the winter landscape, go sliding and skiing. At night, get cozy inside. Explore outside at night only as necessary for social interaction and obligations. These are my thoughts as I head into my first Minnesota winter in six years.