Autumn

Fresh-picked vegetables fill the grocery bins to overflowing. Ragweed pollen sets my nose running nonstop. Here we are again, welcoming meteorological autumn, while the astronomical calendar says we’re in the last gasp of summer. Diminishing daylight is predictable to the minute. Plants ripen on their own terms when they’re ready.

As a historian, I tend to think in terms of linear time. Things happen from first to second to third, from beginning to end. The past never recurs exactly; context always changes. On the other hand, it’s said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. While I grew irreversibly from child to teen to college student and beyond, my girlhood summers ended with the start of school, year after year without fail. All time is both linear and cyclical.

For me, current events force the issue. Linear time isn’t the same as progress. I’m grateful for medical advances that keep me alive and technologies that keep me in touch with family far away. But the state of democracy, climate, and the war-torn world can make me question whether the long arc of the universe truly bends toward justice. At these moments, shifting to a cyclical perspective eases my spirit. Day will follow night. Spring will follow winter. And  one of these weeks, frost will shut down the ragweed until next year.
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Image: Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.