I’m not sure how honest we’re being with ourselves about autumn. Yes, there is so much to love about this fleeting season: the jewel-toned leaves rusting on the trees, the cool weather offering respite after the new hottest summer on record. But, for me, autumn has always brought with it a sense of discomfort; a melancholic angst as I feel myself pulled between past, present and future. For a season known to embody cosiness and safety, it often fills me with uncertainty and longing.
Here, in this northern country, autumn is the last outpost before several months of darkness and snow, of time standing still in a way that invites restlessness into my life unless I rally hard against it. Autumn brings an end to the abundance of the harvest and despite complaining about how busy the growing season has been I find myself missing it already. The land indulges me: next year’s buds are already forming on the bushes and trees, and bulbs are waiting to be plunged into the earth. This hand reaching out from the future feels hopeful, but also makes me impatient. I know, come February, I will be desperate to see the ground, to feel the grass and plant seeds. Autumn makes it hard to stay present, to not long for the life that will follow the death.
The house feels the transition, too. Autumn manifests indoors as light resting in a certain direction on the walls, as needing an extra layer to fend off the cold because it’s not quite cool enough outside for the heating to kick in. In the kitchen, I favour soups and curries, carbs and treats. I lift tiny frogs from the basement stairs every morning and track the positions of spiders in the corners of rooms. Time is of the essence: already, I have missed this year’s mushroom harvest, and if I want to turn lingonberries into jam I need to get out there soon and pick what the forest has to offer. Time before the ground freezes is precious, and I’ve still not erected a bird feeding station or fenced in my flowerbed to protect against hungry deer. Autumn is on a tight schedule, and I’m falling behind.
My September is troubled with memories and anniversaries of personal grief and the still-fresh anger of a political shift towards the far-right in Sweden. On hopeful days, I can see that the powers that oppress us are in their death throes, but still they thrash with more vigour than ever. Nature, too, is in the midst of death – the seasonal one we expect along with a forced, prolonged snubbing out. During autumn, the planet sheds what is no longer needed in preparation for a hopeful and happy renewal come spring. I try to do the same, making plans for next year’s garden and keeping a promise to myself to finish the blanket I’m crocheting – two activities that propel me with hope into a liveable future worth fighting for.
So, I’m crocheting (sometimes with candles lit) and I’m pottering about in the polytunnel preparing the beds there for a winter sleep before a productive spring. On what feels like one of the few sunny and temperate days we have left, I bake carrot and courgette slices spiced with cloves and cinnamon, and we take them with us on a steep hike on the outskirts of a nearby town. The landscape is textured by autumn, the multi-tonal leaves adding depth to the breathtaking view we enjoy from the top. Suddenly, I am all full of plans for future Septembers – the golden month when temperatures are low enough for most (but not all) of the mosquitos to have died off, but not so low that you can’t still hike and camp. By all accounts, I’m letting autumn in.
Maybe this in-between season has earned its special place in people’s hearts. Maybe the perpetual fall enjoyed by Rory and Lorelai Gilmore is attainable if we can only light enough candles, pile enough blankets and bake enough cookies. Maybe when wholesomeness and spookiness collide at the end of the month there is something about this juxtaposition, this duality, that puts us in touch with something elemental within us. But maybe autumn is also a complex and complicated season; a bridge between extremes that we cross with trepidation, a time that cannot be contained and marketed. Maybe it is all these things and more.
My short story collection, Tools For Surviving A Storm, is out now.
‘In a transporting, original collection, Nadia Henderson examines the lines between nature and the human world through stories set in landscapes both brutal and beautiful.’
I’m Nadia, a London-born writer living and working in rural Sweden. I write short stories, creative non-fiction and, of course, newsletters. If you like, you can find out more about me and my work on my website. Thank you for reading Home Comforts!