Photo of the Day: The Remains of the Fall

The seasons don’t represent the same thing to me now that they did when I was a kid. Back then, winter meant sleigh rides down the hill across the street from my house, and maybe even time off from school. Now, it means bone-chilling temperatures that could bring on bronchitis or pneumonia; cars that must be driven ultra-carefully lest they skid; slips on ice that could break bones; or massive amounts of snow that need to be shoveled.

Similarly, once I associated fall playing football with friends, marveling at the changing colors of the season, or running and diving into piles of leaves. Now, though, fall comes late and, through one windy rainstorm after another, the foliage has hardly been transformed before it’s come down—and all those leaves have to be raked and put out for collection before they’re buried under snow.

Last weekend, as you’ll see in this photo I took, I raked nine bags of leaves on my property, for a grand total of 21 bags this season. I take no joy in this task. Whatever meager consolation I derive comes from the exercise it necessitates—the kind of energetic, if not free, movements in which I engaged in the early seasons of my life.