It is late-September. That time of year in southern California when the summer’s heat still lingers, but the nights begin to grow cold. Instead of shorts and a t-shirt in the early morning when I step outside to check the gates before letting the dogs out, I’m in shorts and a sweatshirt. They don’t last long—those extra layers—but they are a sign of the changing seasons.
There is another sign, though, and I have tried to put my finger on it for the past few days. Something that spoke of fall. Something that triggered an emotion in me that felt like nostalgia, even while I could never pinpoint exactly what it was that I was feeling nostalgic about. Something about my childhood? Maybe days in the Sierras with my students when I used to go on field trips up there? The timing is right. Maybe it wasn’t nostalgia, exactly. Maybe just joy.
Was it the quality of the light? The reduced angle of sunlight falling across the landscape after the harsh, high angles of summer? The shortening days, maybe? But that didn’t explain how it could hit me at any time of day.
I thought it must be a scent. The dampness finally touching the ground that has been dry for so long. The moisture on leaves. The grass in the morning.
The feeling would strike me out of nowhere. It was a feeling, you see. A gentle, lovely sensation that made me feel quietly happy. But what triggered it? It has happened many times over the last few days, and it pulls me up short. I pause and consider: what is that scent? Surely, it’s a scent that’s doing it. It’s not something I’m seeing. I’m not looking at anything in particular when these feelings strike. It must be a scent.
It isn’t.
I finally realize that it’s a sound.
I had to test all my senses to land on the right one. Yes, a sound. The sound of wind. But, no, not just any wind. Lord knows, I live in a place with plenty of wind, and it is not something I am at all fond of.
It is the sound of wind that gusts, and then stops. Gusts, and then stops. It is the sound of wind through fully-leaved trees—not the empty branches of late fall or winter. The full foliage of late summer, lifted and rustled by a gentle breeze that then stops.
It is the most magical sound in the world.
And here, where I live, it only happens just like this at the start of fall.
I realize that my body has noted that sound all its life and fallen in love with it. Without my conscious knowledge at all. Of course, my body also noticed the scents, and the sights—the moisture in the air, the changing daylight length. Who knew? Which just goes to show how much goes on in our bodies, with our senses, connected to our emotions, that we are scarcely aware of. And what an interesting challenge—to note those things; to see if we can decipher where they come from. What magic stirs us all the time.
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