Fall is here

As a child in first grade, I learned how to write my first full sentence, welcoming the new season. The command of words pleased me so much that after penciling “Fall is here” a dozen times or so on a lined sheet of paper in class, I used colored chalks to repeat it on the sidewalks around my parents’ house and even the bricks of the building. It became such a family code phrase that for the rest of his life my older brother Michael would call me every year near September 22 to remind me “Fall is here.” And sometimes I would mail him a note, in several colors of ink, to say the same.

I recently shared this memory with my science writing students at Smith College. Then I gave them a related assignment geared to their level: Write a one-paragraph explanation of the autumnal equinox. I knew this was tantamount to asking them to describe a spiral staircase without using their hands, but they met the challenge.

It feels fitting, at this time of year, to picture the tilted earth on its path through space, rounding a place in its orbit where sunlight falls evenly on the northern and southern hemispheres. The earth’s annual cycle–more ancient and enduring than the leaves’ consuming themselves in flame–moves all of us forward, on to face the next thing.

Fall is here.