The Turbulence of the Fall

I went for a walk this morning, and I got to say, it was freaking cold. There have been other mornings where it was a bit cool, even chilly. Not this morning. Nope, this morning was just plain, out and out cold!

This is not unusual. After all, it's October, and not August, right? But what makes this weird is that when i went hiking a week ago, it actually did feel like summer. If you did not know any better, you might have thought it was August, and not yet October.

It is unusual that the differences were quite that extreme, but that is how it works during the transitional phase of the season. One day, you think it's a continuation of summer (or winter, if it is early spring), and then the next, it's entirely different, and you can feel the approach of winter. It can be downright eerie from time to time.

Up until this morning, I was still hiking with shorts and a t-shirt, with my one concession on particularly chilly days being to add a light, short sleeve shirt along for the hike. Today, however, I wore long pants and a full button down shirt. Normally, I hesitate to wear too much clothes, since my body temperature tends to rise while hiking. But today, that really did not matter. At no point was I excessively warm, and only at one point did I really even begin to feel warm (and it went away in a hurry). Considering that you are exerting a strong degree of energy and building up your body temperature, that is saying something.

It's still early yet, and we could see the temperatures spike up and down. There is still that turbulence of the changing of a season, and more Indian Summer days are still possible.

Yet, usually, once we get our first real freeze, or at least reach freezing temperatures, as much of New Jersey  received last night, that tends to be it for days that you can mistake for summer. So, I'm going to guess that lat weekend's brilliantly warm days are a thing of the past for this calendar year, and that we won't see anything like those temperatures again until we are on the other side of the approaching winter.

Of course, I have been wrong before.

Still, there is a charm to the hike. The day before, when you could feel the temperatures were about to plummet (or maybe I was influenced by the knowledge of the upcoming overnight freezing temperatures), there were actual insects to be seen. Not many, but more than one. Enough to know that it was no fluke.

But this morning? Barely anything was stirring in those woods. A couple of birds flew away from me, from the sounds of my footsteps approaching. One strand from a spider web, but with no apparent spider attached. But that was it. It was eerily silent, a prelude of things to come. On my walk, I could detect the slight evidence of the scent of the freshly fallen leaves. It was a little bit like spa or syrup, a smell that I associate with the autumn, but which I rarely smell as clearly and powerfully as yesterday, during that hike. It certainly will not last for very much longer.

Soon, it will be winter. But not yet. I am trying not to mentally rush the seasons right now, and to appreciate these hikes on their own. Whether it feels like an extension of the recently departed summer, like last weekend did, or whether it feels more like a foretaste of the upcoming winter, like this one did, each hike tends to bring a little something new, to say nothing of peace of mind.  I look forward to my little daily sojourns every day now.