My fellow office workers know it is late September because they must confer blessings upon me a dozen or more times a day in the swirling wake of my sneezes — usually two or three in quick succession. Feeling a little too sanctified for the line of work I’m in, I encourage them to collectively convey a blanket blessing for the season and be done with it.
It’s just that I have an ample and sensitive nose, and the early fall air is a stew of stuff: pollen, leaf mold, and the plain old “dust to dust” of New England’s molting deciduous biomass. It is just too much to take in all at once. A few hearty sneezes clear the head and, if the indelicate truth be told, season the stew.
If you get out of the office and walk through the countryside, you will see nearly every wild plant is in the process of casting off something. It is the time of year when growing things loose patience with their rootedness and make travel plans — some more ambitious than others.
The hickory tree in my yard drops nuts in the shade of its own canopy. It can improve its range with a lucky bounce into the street and down the hill, or with the help of a forgetful squirrel who carries it to a distant stash it never finds again. But for the most part, its fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.