September 22, 2014 (Monday)
Today is a special day, because the season of fall arrives at 9:29 p.m. at our location in the Central Daylight Time zone. The occasion is known as the September Equinox or Autumnal Equinox. It’s the moment the sun’s direct rays cross the equator on their way to the southern hemisphere, where it’s known as the Spring Equinox or Vernal Equinox. As you know, the seasons are reversed down there.
The earth tilts on its axis in relation to the sun but at the moment of an equinox, it is
perpindicular to the sun’s rays. Theoretically. the day and night are equal (“equinox” means “equal night”), but the truth is that day and night are never exactly equal. But they are “close enough” to use the word, “equal,” or “equinox.”
Anyway, fall begins here tonight at 9:29 p.m.
Temperatures and humidity, etc. seem to follow a calendar all their own. And here in this semi-tropical location on the sea shore, we seem to have our own seasons, although no one is quite sure what they are. It does get hot in the summer and cool in the winter. In some years the winters are nice, and in others, downright ugly cold, even freezing the poor fishes.
I guess you could describe fall in South Texas as that part of the year when summer gradually fades and gives way to winter, which in most years seems to come on strong in January, if it comes at all. Or so it seems to me.
During the fifty years I’ve lived here, we have run the air conditioners at Christmas a few times. But we saw a White Christmas a few years back, and several humdinger freezes through the years.
Anyway, as I started to say a few paragraphs ago, today’s calendar declares it to be the first day of the fall season. It’s about time.
Now, let’s get serious. “..the days grow short when you reach September..”
Shakespeare used autumn as reminder of aging in his 73rd sonnet:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
We are aging, but the sonnet reminds us that love endures and grows stronger.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.