I’ve been reading Gary Snyder’s most recent book of essays, Back on Fire (2007). In a couple of the essays, Snyder talks about the two seasons in the Mediterranean-type climate of much of California: there’s the summer-dry season, and the winter-wet season.
It has been odd for me, having recently moved from the south coast of Massachusetts, to hear people in California talk about seasons. We had a cool day a couple of days ago, and I overheard someone in the supermarket say to the cashier, “Fall is finally here.” It doesn’t feel like autumn to me. Autumn means a killing frost, and a changing weather pattern that includes more rain storms, and wide variations between warm and cold. We have not had a killing frost here, nor an increased incidence of rain storms; the earth, where it hasn’t been watered by in-ground irrigation systems, is still hard and parched and cracked dry, and the grasses are still dry and crisp, and the fire danger (as it is every summer in California) is still very high. We are not experiencing autumn here yet; we are still in the summer-dry season.
Somewhere in one of the essays in Back on Fire, Snyder says people living in California should abandon the kind of lawns and landscapes that require heavy water usage in the summer — practices that have been imported from the “Atlantic coast,” says Snyder; although these practices are really indigenous to the English climate, because even on the Atlantic coast lawns need heavy irrigation in the summer in order to stay green. But as a poet, Snyder also gives us new language, so that we can start thinking and acting in new ways. The English language has names for four seasons: winter, spring, summer, autumn or fall; these words come from the land where the English language began. In New England, most years have five seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall, Indian summer; we had to invent a new term for that season between fall and winter when the leaves have all fallen and weather gets warm again and there is still plenty of fresh food for humans and other animals to eat. In this bioregion of California, west of the crest of the Sierras, there are just two seasons, which Snyder calls summer-dry and winter-wet; to try to impose the old English terms for the four English seasons is a kind of self-delusion.
So it does not feel like autumn yet, because there is no autumn here, not really. Winter-wet has not yet begun; the hills are still brown, the trees are dull and faded green; we are still waiting for the first big rain storm of the new season. Yet here near the Pacific coast, we can feel that the weather pattern is changing; the fog is not reliable as it is in the middle of the summer-dry season. (And maybe here we need to add a third season to Snyder’s two, because Snyder lives up in the foothills of the Sierras where there is no summer fog. Maybe we need to talk about a summer-fog season which precedes the real summer-dry season; but I haven’t lived here long enough to be able to say.) We’re still in summer-dry season, but winter-wet season is just around the corner.
Fall in northern CA — the signs are everywhere
You know the seasons are changing because:
of the late arrival of dawn and the early arrival of dusk.
its time for the grape harvest.
water levels in the local reservoirs are low.
UV levels are below 8 on a clear, bright afternoon.
the humpbacks are migrating south.
Oktoberfest beer is available at Whole Foods.
Or perhaps, to avoid the clunk of a hyphen, new words are needed entirely. Rather than summer-dry, why not Browning season? And for winter-wet, perhaps The Greening season. And for fog season? Ah, I think you should call that Sandburg season.
I’m a California native, and I agree that the “four seasons” idea doesn’t fit us at all, but I don’t think we have just two seasons. I think we have about 15 of them, and they are distinguished by the smells. (did you smell tarweed season?)
I have often thought of doing a “four seasons” series of paintings for the bay area: green winter, pink-yellow-white spring, fog dripping from fuchsias summer, golden autumn. but we really do need to distinguish between the hot yellow summer and the gray foggy summer — both of which are completely typical.
As a Californian, I found the dry brown winters in desert Colorado to be shocking as I am so used to winter being green here. Summer in New York — what I found shocking was that it didn’t cool down when the sun set. It almost always does here. How do people sleep there? (duh, it’s New York, the city that never sleeps….)
Oh, and killing frost: here in the bay area we rarely have a killing frost at all. Maybe every twenty years or so. We have light frost a few times a year. It doesn’t even get cold enough to make the rose bushes go completely dormant. Lilacs don’t smell like they do in cold climates, and apples won’t set much fruit. but the rare occasions when it snows become a holiday. Last time we had a killing frost, I lost a six foot tall jade plant — it froze to death. but a new one came up from the remnants. It must have been really old because that was almost twenty years ago and it’s not anywhere near the size it was. (well, I just went out to look at it, and it is getting pretty big again, though thinner.)
As a Massachusetts native who moved here about 15 years ago, I wonder if you will go a similar perception-shift to that which I experienced. When we first got here I found it really disorienting not to be able to look out a window, say, and know what time of year it was. I couldn’t really tell what season it was even if I was outside, most of the time. Though I still miss (and look forward to one day returning to) very distinct seasons, I can now mark the turning by the changes in the light…
(Am enjoying your blog, by the way. I used to attend UUCPA and am still on the email list; that’s how I found my way here. Thanks for your writing and sharing!)
well, we saw a lot of rain already this fall – and this coming week ought to be a mess. As for me, I like seeing the changing trees out here – more subtle than traveling from western Mass to Vermont with those show-offy maples. Fall in NoCal is beautiful and I think Jean’s idea of the greening season might be a way to make it til that first new year heat wave, that will no doubt be here before pitchers and catchers report…
Jean @ 2 — Gary Snyder’s poetry is all about clunk. It’s a Far Western thing.