seasons | [ Lost in the Landscape ]

The Japanese language has many poetic names for the seasons. One phrase that I’ve found particularly beautiful is take no aki, or “bamboo autumn.” It refers to the period in middle- to late-spring when leaves of some bamboos turn yellow and fall from the plants. In addition to the gorgeous built-in poetic analogy, I like how the phrase grounds a specific portion of the season by invoking a natural process that presumably would have been understood by a good portion of the population.

Another eucalyptus with exfoliating bark When I take my lunch break during the week and head to the gym, I follow a path that takes me by a small cluster of eucalyptus trees planted in a patch of lawn. Several of the trees have beautifully smooth trunks which are covered with a delicately mottled silvery bark. Once a year, usually late in spring or early in summer, the bark exfoliates, dropping off in small chunks that reveal the surprise: a bumpy, pale ocher layer of new bark underneath.

Exfoliating eucalyptus Another of the trees drops larger, thin, brittle sheets of red-brown bark, revealing a deliciously pale icy green below.

Many eucalyptus species have bark that exfoliates, as do many other trees, such as the sycamores that congregate in the moister areas of the local canyon bottoms. So…why shouldn’t we have a name for when that happens? Why shouldn’t we come up with ways to reattach language to natural processes and the world around us? Why not refer to this awkward transitional spring-summer period we’re in as “eucalyptus autumn?”

(Okay, okay, if you must quibble, not all of the 740-plus eucalyptus species shed their bark. And those that do, don’t do it at exactly the same time. But I vote for anything that grounds us more securely in the cycles of the world. And language, being such a fundamental component of our existence, seems like a great tool to use to accomplish the goal.)

I’m still visiting Newport R.I. where it seems like things are on hold. The lawns are mostly brown, the trees largely bare. Some evergreens seem like they’re waiting, like they’ve been waiting. A few rhododendrons or azaleas probably could be spectacular, but they’re not going to fulfill that promise anytime soon. It’s winter.

On the plane here I was reading the introduction to a scholarly edition of the Sukateiki, the Japanese eleventh-century gardening treatise that’s possibly the oldest book on gardening in existence in any language. In a chapter on geomancy, the authors discuss how the five geomantic elements–wood, fire, earth, metal, water–correspond to the seasons. Metal is autumn, water is winter, wood is spring, fire is summer, and earth the season that follows, doyo (pretend that there’s a macron–a long line–over the concluding “o”). So…five elements, five seasons? That got me thinking.

I spent some of my childhood in Burma, a tropical country with weather and seasons governed by the monsoons off the Indian Ocean. (An aside: To see what you can do to stay informed on the awful political mess there, as well as what you can do to help, click here.) There we had a cold dry season, then a hot dry season, followed by the rainy season. Three seasons. When my mother would talk about life in Ohio, with its four seasons, with its seasons of cold and snow, it all seemed awfully exotic and incomprehensible.

Now, living in Southern California, it’s impossible not to run into someone nostalgic for what they call four real seasons. Except for the occasional deciduous tree things stay pretty green. Things bloom in January. So some complain that it’s really just one very long season. Of course, anyone who’s lived there a while can feel the changes: You really shouldn’t plant lettuce in July, just as you’d probably not want to leave your doors and windows open most days in January. Every place has its cycles, only some are more subtle than others. Or do some people never go out of their houses?

And here in Newport, with the bare trees, the brown lawns, and–just overnight–a covering of fresh snow, there’s no doubt. It’s winter.

an artist loosed in a garden

[ Lost in the Landscape ]

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"eucalyptus autumn"

how many seasons?

an artist loosed in a garden