Autumn

Yesterday I heard someone at work say, "It's the first day of autumn."

I've heard this before in the U.S. for seasons, but I don't believe that growing up in the UK anyone ever talked about a season as having an official first day. It sounds very strange to me - seasons are nebulous, blend into one another, and though you can say "autumn is on its way" or "autumn is here", announcing its official commencement seems very weird. But there you go, "commencement" is another odd thing: where in the UK school just begins or ends, in the U.S. you have commencement, which oddly is the graduation ceremony right at the end, and furthermore you have graduation from high school where in Scotland you just leave. Things are set up differently here.

To me, autumn is here when the weather and the trees say so. Coincidentally, our turn in the weather in Maine came at the beginning of this week. After a seemingly endless hot and sticky late summer (not at all what we'd hoped for from Maine), it is at last cold enough at nights to keep your limbs under a quilt, and cool enough in the day to sometimes even wear a second layer.