Fall Colours
by Ayesha Adamo
Last Sunday’s balmy weather had me sitting outdoors in Chinatown enjoying noodles, which wouldn’t be unusual – except for the fact that this is November and I’m in New York. In the seasonless grey of the city, marked only by the cramped signs and awnings of restaurants and shop windows, the disparity is less apparent. After all, the Yankees just won, and the spring-like weather seems in keeping with the overall mood of the city. 
Back in NJ, it’s been three days of rain and grey. I wonder if we’re turning into England…or Seattle. Today it’s like a monsoon out there, with no crisp fall days in sight. Sure, Starbucks is still rolling out the annual offering of pumpkin-flavored coffee concoctions, but the other signs that it is, in fact, nearly Thanksgiving are missing in action.
Now, the official first day of autumn was supposedly on September 22nd this year, and fashion tells us to pack up our summer whites by Labor Day, but these practices seem to harken back to an earlier time. To be sure, the only autumnal reds and golds I saw in September were at the annual West Indian Carnival in Brooklyn.
So I look to my familiar childhood friend, the giant maple tree in my backyard, for some answers, but see only a colour unfamiliar to the season: green. Not the green of “going green,” nor the green that lines the wallets of those who benefit from nourishing the disposable nature of our society’s consumerism…This just might be the green of what is already out of our hands.
