Autumn - My Favourite Season

Autumn is my favourite of our four seasons here in Canada.  

My earliest fond memories of autumn were when I was a teenager.  I would hang out with my friends and we'd throw a football around on crisp, blue, dry, sunny Montreal autumn days.  You could smell the brown sugary sweetness of the brown leaves decomposing on the grass, moistened by the morning dew.  At the end of the day, newly fallen red and yellow leaves would scrunch underneath our footsteps as the sun lowered in the sky and brightened the already fiery reds.

Now that I live in Vancouver autumn remains the season that I enjoy the most.  It happens to also be the one season on the west coast that is similar to its twin over in Quebec.  The other seasons are very dissimilar.  Winter is wet, humid and grey in Vancouver - the grass is green.  It is white, cold and dry in Montreal - the grass is dormant and covered.  Montreal has beautiful sunny days during that season though, with scrunchy snow at boot level. Spring in Vancouver is flowery, has great sweet smells of budding flowers.  Montreal's spring is dirty and gritty due to all the sand and salt accumulated over the winter.  It also smells as all the dog poo unfreezes and surfaces from underneath its white blanket.  The summer in Vancouver is beautiful, dry and California like.  The evenings and nights bring along nature's natural air conditioner - cool breezes from the ocean and mountain valleys.  Montreal has hot, humid, thundery summers and requires man made air conditioning.

But autumn....autumn is beautiful in both cities.  Again...cool, dry, crisp.  Blue, cloudless skies with little humidity to distort the distant views.  The lower sun creates beautiful colours and elongated shadows, highlighting the texture of the world around us.  The weakening rays of the sun are still felt, warming us under our fleeces and sweaters, though you can feel the cooler days ahead as well.  A nice contrast.  The half of your body facing the sum is warm, the other half cool, maybe cold.

At the end of autumn's path winter awaits.