I’m having a love affair with Autumn, which, like all good love affairs, makes me feel like I am the first person in the universe to ever feel precicely this way.

Has anyone else noticed the change in the light? The sound leaves make when they’re falling in the forest? The scattering of leaves on top of the water that looks like someone has strewn brightly colored confetti?

I’m gobsmacked that millions of people have been experiencing this season in all of its glory while I’ve just been blithely ignorant in California, smugly pointing to the maples in my neighborhood to prove that we do too have seasons in California.

How is the world this beautiful and we just go on with our lives?

Certainly, I feel as if I’m experiencing fall for the first time in my life, even though I used to live here so that can’t be true. I must be paying attention for the first time. And as much as there is plenty to admire in all of the photographic evidence of fall colors, I am discovering this is a season that has to be experienced to fully appreciate. All of my senses are delighted every time I walk out the door.

This morning, it was sound. I thought it must be raining despite the blue sky, but then I realized it was the sound of rustling trees and leaves falling to the ground. I was so dumbfounded by the unexpectedness of the sound of fall (literally) that I took a video.

The smell is different, too. The mulchy, mineral smell of summer has faded into an earthy crisp smell. Wood burning fires have replaced barbecues.

And time. I’ve been tracking this season like Lulu on the trail of a treat. From the first blushes of red and fading greens to the oranges and yellows. Now the bright green of summer is a memory.

What I used to say about (coastal) California seasons is that we do get four of them, we just get them at any old time, often simultaneously and out of order. And I think part of what is amazing me about fall in Quebec is the coordinated effort afoot outside my window. Like a fine-tuned symphony the trees are changing their colors in lyrical patterns all around the lake. I wake up from one day to the next and the world looks different.

Sadly I am in my last days here for the year so I think I will miss the peak of the season, but I’m very grateful to have experienced what I have of it.