Autumn on Campus
Every dying autumn leaf will be reborn—you alongside them.
A path outside of the Humanities Wing. (Photo By: Mitra Arianfar // The Underground)
Students swarm and crowd the hallways, classrooms, and Marketplace lunch lines. First years wander lost in the catacombs of the Science Wing, while students who had summer courses wistfully reminisce about how empty campus was then. Now, Welcome Day signs are placed at entrances, a band plays outside of AC, and an ice cream truck outside of the Science Wing draws a long line.
It is September on campus, and both the sun and students shine with hope not yet dimmed by the soon approaching gray skies or deadlines. Summer still sings in the sunshine and cerulean sky, in the heat that you sweat in as you run late to class. The days still stretch long and so does your time on campus. You linger to talk with friends and take lunch outdoors, where the dwindling bugs and bees honour you with their full attention. But it’s September and the air is sweet and you are free for now, so who cares? You get lost in your readings just for the fun of it: Old English poems, Latin in translation, scraps of historical sources, or books on evolution and the earliest hominins. Maybe you read the Odyssey for a Classics course and you think about Odysseus: his hero’s journey, his homecoming, his katabasis.
Katabasis: the hero’s descent into the underworld. Almost as daunting as the start of a semester. Essays and midterms and readings upon readings—truly, abandon all hope, who enter here. But you’ll forget about all that because it is September, and you are not yet at the Acheron river, you are as alive as the deer treading in the forest of the Ma Moosh Ka Win Valley Trail. Be reassured, it isn’t time to go below ground yet.
The days will idle by as rust inches across the leaves and sunset falls earlier each day. Blink, and suddenly the autumn equinox has come and gone. Blink, and what comes into focus is the crunch of leaves underfoot, the retreating temperatures, the colours arrayed in the trees.
Blink—it’s October. Campus empties out with the onslaught of midterm season. Some who manage to still attend classes hustle to the bus loop to go home and study. Meanwhile, the library, the study carrels of SW, the hidden study space by the north exit of BV, all taken up by students working away with a coffee and water on hand. Caffeine and hydration — the real keys to success. The line at Tim’s is perplexingly as long as ever, no matter the time of day. Perhaps a strange pocket dimension phenomenon? Hot and iced drinks are ordered in equal measure, because no amount of cold weather will stop us from getting our iced chai latte with oat milk.
And while you spiral into madness and hell, nature seems to morph with you. The air grows sharp and still, and you draw clear breaths. Mosquitoes seem to have disappeared, but what geese are left on campus still menace the populace. The trees are swathed in every warm colour: orange and yellow and red flecked on leaves like blood. It is an explosive fire, a golden hour, the last burst of energy in a sprint. It is a moment of life, loud and beautiful, before the winter / the midterm season / the end.
The Ma Moosh Ka Win Valley Trail in autumn. (Photo By: Mitra Arianfar // The Underground)
In between exams, you take in autumn. You walk on the trail wearing a coat, but let your fingertips grow red and numb. It might be sunny that day. The colours of the leaves against the clear blue sky will make the whole world seem saturated. There will be a gentle breeze, and you’ll smell summer on its breath. A rustle of leaves, and you’ll hear September laughter in its echoes. Or it might be a dull and cloudy day. It’ll match your tired stride, your wearing thin energy. You might see a heart shaped stone on the path, and it’ll make you miss your friends, and maybe the clouds will start weeping for your temporary loss.
October rain is a special thing. It glistens on the leaves, coats the boulders on the Rock Walk (Tsi Yonennyake’tóhton) and gathers along the curb of the sidewalk outside the Student Centre. It puddles on the pavement and reflects the glow of the streetlights, which flicker like a wisp with every step taken. It drizzles and tempests all in one day, changing with the tide of your emotions.
It’s nice, in a way. You and nature going hand in hand into hibernation and hell. You sacrifice your sleep to study, as the trees do their leaves, as the leaves do their green.
Soon enough, November arrives. The gray skies are now predictable, the cold now much harsher. The Tim's line stretches on. Students sit in their solitary rabbit holes, catching up on readings about things they would be more fascinated about if they weren’t so stressed. Someone plays a lilting tune at the piano in the BV hallway. Later, that same piano is used to play the Super Mario Bros. theme. Outside, fog shrouds the heads of buildings, as if the clouds couldn’t bear to be left out of our katabasis.
November is the death rattle before finals. Autumn gives ground to winter and comfortingly self-destructs alongside you.
Autumn is a comfort, yes—beautiful too. How arresting is the sight of an autumn forest in metamorphosis? It’s fleeting, and maybe the thought of that grows sorrow, but you are reassured because the loss will be temporary. Soon, it will be spring, then summer, then autumn again. The cycle of the seasons is inevitable. Just the same, your little jaunt into the underworld over a semester, no matter how terrible, will end. You’ll emerge to see the stars again. The dormant cherry blossoms outside KW will bloom, the sun will mischievously play hide-and-seek behind the limbs of flowering trees, and students will once again take up the benches and picnic tables on campus.
Every dying autumn leaf will be reborn—you alongside them.
A gentle reminder found on the Ma Moosh Ka Win Valley Trail. (Photo By: Mitra Arianfar // The Underground)
