Sunday, 09:40, London
It’s the first day of autumn, or so I’m told. By the calendar of meteorologists and some media outlets, apparently so. But one cycle through the night doesn’t suddenly change the season. There’s little difference today in the climate or plantlife to find a discernible spot-the-difference.
Storms across Central and Balkan Europe, an unusual pattern of air masses bringing warm air from the east, the jet stream pushed way up across Scandinavia – signals that something is different.
On a walk by myself Friday evening around the River Lea, I noticed most the wildflowers have gone to seed. I tore off some of their remnants – dried sandy grass heads, some mottled purple stalks that smelled closely of mint. And pocketed – still alive – recently exploded purple-green heads off the reeds.
Through my unplanned foraging – a bunch of wildflowers to return home with, honing my mind and attention down from the stresses of the week to the organic green and life around the river – I found my first sign of autumn.
Over the last week I’d noticed on my walk to work through Victoria Park some of the canopy turning yellow and dry. But I’d put that down to the heat. There’d been a day or two in August where leaves fell to the ground in London Fields. No one really seemed concerned. We’d seen that before during the 40-degree heatwave in 2022. A stress-response, preservation. But that wasn’t what I’d taken as my sign.
On a small tree or a young bush its lowers leaves had turned red-magenta. A beacon through the dominant green of the left-wild bank leading down to the river.
It’s starting, but it can’t be autumn. Not in the turn of a month or a single plant. It’s collective, whole. Like the changing of planks in a ship. No day defines it, but in parts and pieces it comes, until one day it’s apparent.
It’s started. In the longer nights, giving more time to the cooling of the earth and water, slowly shifting the balance of energy in the air. In the animals too; the house martins are spending more time away from the square each day with their young growing stronger for migration; Canada geese have arrived, from where? In my moods, I feel it as I settle from the highs of summer and elevated baseline of mental health.
There’s no single marker or day. It will all come in pieces, then whole.