I've always loved autumn best. Sure, spring is the most welcome season, eagerly awaited after a gray, lingering winter. Summer? Everybody loves summer because it brings out the fun in all of us; It transforms us into kids bursting with joyful optimism, where anything is possible. It's no mystery to me why our forefathers had the unmitigated courage to declare independence from our overlord in England in summer. It's no surprise that a guy first walked on the moon in that shoot-for-the-sky season.
But to me autumn is special above all. Its noticeably shortening daylight signals the coming end of frivolity and encourages contemplation of more serious tasks ahead. Like sealing a house snugly against the coming winter cold. And cutting back the perennials in the garden hoping they will return in a few months, if we are lucky. Most of all though, autumn is filled with bittersweet emotion. It's one last exuberant splash of warmth and color to hold onto in our memory until winter finally relaxes its icy grip.
Yes, autumn is close to perfect … except for one missing element: The rich, earthy smell of burning leaves.
When I was a kid that was always the final reward for hours spent raking leaves and piling them in a riot of brilliant color. Touching a match to the pile would first send tendrils of smoke into the sky and within minutes there would be a conflagration, giving off waves of heat and throwing ashes and sparks high into the air like miniature fireworks.
That's frowned upon today. Illegal actually. There's the risk that it might set someone's home on fire, although I doubt it has happened very often. But we're told the smoke and those airborne particulates pose an environmental hazard to air breathers like us. I don't know about you but I see a greater environmental threat coming out of the tailpipe of half the diesel buses on the road today. Yet they go on fouling the air with their fumes while the rich, pleasantly pungent odor of burning leaves has been banished from our backyards forever.
Well, not so fast.
This year I've decided to fight back against encroaching limits to our freedom. When the time is right and the leaves are at their most colorful I will conduct a small ceremony, in the backyard of course. Gathering a small amount of leaves I will set them ablaze in a container and then suck in deep breaths of the resulting smoke. I will emulate the pattern of dogs who love to roll around in stuff they really like—the smellier the better—in order to get the odor of it on their coats … and I will try to infuse my clothes and even my hair with the fragrance of that wonderful earthy blue smoke.
Will I influence others to defy the burning leaf ban? You never know. A single spark can start a revolution.
But I will cherish that moment regardless. And I will keep those clothes in a sacred place where I can periodically return again and again to rekindle one of my favorite autumn memories.
If I could bottle it I could probably make a fortune.
