Scientists, academics, and insufferable party guests will call it the September Equinox. This important date might sound like a Harry Potter spell, but unlike the boy who lived, it is very much real. It is just a pretentious term for the day Mother Earth reaches yet another milestone on her steady journey around the sun. Like many parents, however, she’s not very stable: the poor lady tumbles drunkenly back and forth as she moves around the sun.
As of today, she’s recovered her balance, and stands fairly straight for now, showering both hemispheres with an equal amount of sunlight and heat. In three months, however, she’ll be tumbling backwards, pulling the north away from the fire and turning our rain to ice, which is… fun.
Nevertheless, we are officially in the fall season! It’s that lovely time of year when the trees start stressing about winter so much they lose their leaves — it’s mother nature’s equivalent of going bald during finals, except her mental breakdown is not as disturbing to watch. As it turns out, it’s a colour fest! Leaves in orange and red, swirling around before softly reaching the ground, while Taylor Swift plays in the background for the next ten minutes (then another ten minutes, then just once more, and so on until you switch over to Mariah Carey).
Soon enough, along comes the cozy weather, the pumpkin carvings, the different fashion combinations, (check out our fashion column for more!) it’s a whole new aesthetic for your phone wallpaper, considered by many to be their favorite time of the year — which is true for Breanna MacElwain, a third-year student at the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at UFV.
For MacElwain, fall is a cherished season filled with memories from her childhood. Over a round of Iced Capps from UFV’s own Tim Hortons, she told me about her early memories of going on walks with her family and their dog at a park in her hometown of Chilliwack. At an older age, she recalled posing for a picture sitting atop a pumpkin at a pumpkin patch — only for it to break under her, sinking her into its soggy mush. Gross? Maybe. But it was a moment and a picture that she holds dear to her heart. As she told me about her love for Halloween and her fond memories of trick-or-treating (which just might make our Halloween edition), I commented on the potential of her memories as non-fiction pieces, to which she promptly agreed.
Overall, fall is quite a poetic season, we both conclude. Under its bright colours and gloomy atmosphere, it’s not surprising for artists to find themselves deeply inspired by this time of year — and by inspired, one could say depressed, because, let’s be honest, most fall-related art can be quite grim. Afterall, the Starks were right — winter is coming.
However, as a writer herself, MacElwain said she finds hope in the seemingly tragic fall of the leaves. “It’s the yearly rebirth process,” she described it. “Even if the trees are dying … you know that when the hibernation of winter is over, spring will come and…”, she breaks into a chuckle and concludes: “…pollen will come attack your eyes eventually, you know?”
Between winter’s wild cold, summer’s scorching heat, and spring’s vicious pollen attacks, fall is easily MacElwain’s favorite season. She highlighted the colorful landscapes and the simplicity of gloomy days, and revealed she’s not one to dismiss a good pumpkin spice latte. “I do [like it],” she admitted, a hint of guilty pleasure in her tone. “I used to hate it though… and then I started having pumpkin spice lattes ‘cause I wanted to know what they tasted like, and I was like, ‘this is disgusting,’ — and then had them ever since.” As it turns out, our interviewee is a proud converted pumpkin spice lover, which makes two of us. Two may not yet be statistically significant enough for a conclusion, but perhaps those who don’t believe the hype around this fall drink just haven’t tried it enough.
As the semester at UFV reaches a steady rhythm, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless in face of the passing of time and the approach of winter. However, the following three months will be a delightful time for chilly night breezes and gloomy Sunday mornings, so we should try our best to enjoy it before it’s gone — and it won’t hurt to have a latte or two while you’re at it.
