…there are no seasons in California?
Photo by (c)Paramount/Everett / Rex Features ( 794789a )
ORDINARY PEOPLE, Timothy Hutton, Mary Tyler Moore, 1980.
I come from a place renowned for its autumns. Seriously, in the fall of 1979, Robert Redford shot the Academy-award winner Ordinary People there, the place the novel was set, but also because it was so beautiful on film. When I moved to Northern California, a whole lot of (jealous) midwesterners comforted themselves by suggesting I was “giving up fall.” The best season of the year.
E. Roseville Parkway, Granite Bay, CA
But fall is actually really gorgeous here. Starts later than back east, but lasts longer–no freak snow or ice storms taking all the leaves out in the span of a couple of hours. And I live in the City of Trees–or just east of it; and my house is just off E. Roseville Parkway, a long, aptly named, tree-lined boulevard.
This fall we are of course waiting for rain in Northern California too. Had a couple of good soaking storms already and people’s reactions were amusing. “Sweet Jesus, what is that sound?” one woman shouted to her husband. Water from the sky–haven’t had much of that lately. We are also excitedly ordering stylish rain boots and waterproof jackets, cleaning gutters, clearing room in the garage to bring in the cars. El Nino, which will deliver us from The Drought, is on its way.
But it’s also inconvenient when it actually rains. “Oh, I know we need the rain, but does it have to be today?” We’re so used to doing whatever we want, whenever we want, no concern for weather. It’s awful, it’s serious, This Terrible Drought. But it also gives us a Southern California lifestyle–sunny and warm every day–just without the exorbitant prices and freeway mazes and palm trees that don’t turn color in November.
Entrance to Ravinia Park, Highland Park, IL
Right now, I’ll enjoy walking up E. Roseville Parkway in this Northern California autumn–sometimes with my daughter, home from college; sometimes with my ex-staffer and a puppy named Sadie; sometimes alone thinking my private thoughts.
Like of my girlhood in a place far from here, that was also beautiful this time of year.
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