Autumn Colours

Cottonwood in full colour

In my “Northumbrian Voices” blog, I mentioned daydreaming under a cottonwood tree in my youth. Cottonwoods are glorious in the autumn, turning bright gold against the azure sky. These are the colors (colours) I grew up with.

When talking to an English friend recently how wonderful the fall colors are in the States, I couldn't believe it when he said “They're too bright; they hurt my eyes”!! Indeed, I once had a roll of film in my camera (those were the days), half of which I'd taken in Cambridge and half on an excursion to the Shetland Islands. Everyone talks about how the colours are brighter in the Shetlands, but I was amazed when I developed the film to find the first half in muted grey-greens and blue-grays and the second half in bright blues and clear yellows (it was autumn then, too). The gold colours of cottonwoods and aspens are as unlike the tarnished brassy colours of the horse chestnut as you can get. I used to deplore autumn in Cambridge when the leaves just turned brown and fell off the trees.

Rather than hurting my eyes, the golden colours of autumn trees inflitrate my body to the core, pull it apart and scatter it among the leaves. I am there among the twinkling aspen, and the cottonwoods fill my horizon. And the sweet small of wet fallen leaves is wonderful. The same experience can be had among the cherry trees of Japan, when one is enveloped by a cloud of pink. The best place is along Philosopher's Way (Tetsugaku-no-michi) in Kyoto, where cherries line a canal. Walking the canal path at the height of the season, one can only see pink. I suppose my friend would say it would be like being enveloped in candy floss (cotton candy) and equally undesireable. Maybe this is why everyone in London wears black and neutrals ("grey is the new black") -- no colour, no sense of colour, no sense of the fantastic energizing quality of colour. I love colour, I live colour and pity those without colour in their lives.

Note the tire swing in the cottonwood: great place to play!