Two weeks ago Madrid’s summer broke into fall.
This summer was my hottest since that of 2015 where I split my July between Texas and Israel. I had the pleasure of experiencing both Spain’s hottest recorded day and hottest recorded night. Fires raged in the north west of the country. Occasionally I would get terrible allergies, then wondering where they came from realize there was haze in the air, and that the haze was atomized biosphere. Great fires appear in my life in times of great change.
Then, autumn. There had been a tease day, then two. Temperatures remained in the low 90s, then stayed in the 80s. They still creep past decency into the mid-upper-80s, but I’ve experienced at least 4 consecutive days of “no higher than 79F” and thus declare autumn.
Autumn is a boundary season. Summer and Winter are apex and nadir of the year, Spring and Autumn carry us up and down. High August is a special hell: pitiless sun presses radiation into land and creature. The air never properly cools. When the sun fades earth bleeds heat into the night, and you end up sweating at 4am, walking around for some breeze, breathing smoke and street.
For the first month of my life in Madrid I did not see a single cloud. The only instances of precipitation were from A/C units dripping filthy water that evaporated the moment it hit pavement. The first rain was a restorative shift. I opened my door and stood outside just feeling the wind and wet. Summer storms are heavy and aggressive here, but nothing dangerous. They soak and move on. Everything is dry in an hour. But it was a break. From that point forward there were more rains, few, but each was a break from the heat. If they happened toward the end of the day, the temperature stayed low, and would reduce into the night, and while it would never be properly chilly, I could feel that the air was not damned forever.
The first day it did not reach 100F wasn’t bliss, but it was a relief. The first day it didn’t reach 90F was a joy. The first day it didn’t reach 80F was autumn.
It’s funny though. On my way to autumn I caught glimpses of it. Mornings I stepped out into bright, crisp 72F weather. That fired up a feeling.
There’s a sense like deja vu I get when the season just begins to change. It starts in a flicker, with minutes that feel like a holiday. The sun hitting my face in a cool wind, the smell of it. The mix of sensations creates an instant that elevates every sense, all which reach out to grab that feeling and hold it. The thinking mind ceases as everything becomes devoted to feeling. Memories strike, many at once in succession, images or emotions more than any assembly of words which start to run parallel to the experience. Parts of 31 autumns, and all the change that meant.
I am 12 again trick-or-treating for the last time, and 15 at the 3rd Thanksgiving gathering of the year, and 17 in the last marching band performance I’ll ever give. I am 18 and alone on campus eating peanut butter and cereal from a styrofoam bowl, bent over my desk listening to The Postal Service drafting and redrafting an essay, my computer and desk lamp the only lights in the night. I am 23 running across campus in busted jeans and a t-shirt smeared with charcoal smoking a cigarette sweating amphetamine. I am 25 in the mountains buying a round challah, apples, and a bottle of wine, celebrating Rosh Hashanah with the ex I moved in with on a whim. I am 29 hiking alone to to the top of a mountain I never summited with her. I am 31 and in Madrid.
All at once.
It’s nostalgia, but it always comes in a sweep of energy. There’s vibrance to fall. The leaves are dying, but the trees are very much alive. They’ve made the change because they taste the air. Briefly everything is alight in color, the earth is covered in confetti. From pollen to molds, everything smells different in shades, and while the earth is preparing to sleep it’s quite busy.
I too am quite busy. All these autumns sleep in me, roused by a breeze and a scent. I am alive, and in love. I was before, and I will be again. Many of the faces that built this feeling I’ll never see again, but like fallen leaves they build the living soil and scent of my autumn. I forge into the familiar season a different man.
