We'll Come Back For Indian Summer

The Times' editorial page, like me, has always had a sentimentalist streak when it comes to the rhythms of the seasons. Back in August, it complained that this year's didn't seem like previous ones -- too much traffic, too hectic a pace and not enough people fleeing the city to relax and tune out the office. Last week, the writers spun this gem about fall 2011. Editorial pages aren't meant to be so lyrical:

"There is no single way to measure the coming of autumn. Gardeners wait for the first hard frost, the one the blackens the basil and pulps the tomatoes still on the vine. For some, it's the smell of wood smoke or the sight of leaves flaming out one tree species at a time. In New York City, there are different measures. Fall begins when street fashion slips into thermal chaos -- down jackets, shawls, bermudas and flip-flops all on the same block. Fall begins, as it did this week, when the residual heat in the subway station feels strangely welcome.

"The approach to autumn has been murkier than usual this year -- a long, damp slog toward October, days of rain all across the Northeast. We can hope, after the first hard frost, for a week or so of Indian summer. But there is really no proper name for the slice of the season we've had so far. This fall has been made of moments from late May, a few gray days from early June, some Sundays that April discarded, and a week or so that seems to have orphaned entirely, with no month to call home.

"It will come, we hope -- the sky a Venetian blue, the days as crisp as a just-ripe, old-fashioned apple, an Ashmead's Kernel or a Calvill Blanc. That is the autumn we're waiting for -- not a prognostication of winter or a postponement of summer, but actual autumn, a season we hope will last as long as it can. It is a season of gnat-killing nights and afternoons when the sun's heat is becoming elusive. It is frost on the grass and your visible breath rising in the air."

Well, that Indian summer came last weekend in New York and it was much warmer than the Times' writer would've liked but glorious nonetheless. He or she clearly doesn't live in Boston, where any unexpected warmth and soaking sunshine is welcome. Even if it was a postponement of summer, it was wonderful to chase it down. Thanks to Luna, via Beat Happening, for the post's title.