Published: October 16, 2006 11:36 pm         

Ms. Takes: Beauty of fall never ceases to be a surprise

TERRE HAUTE — I am a Midwesterner born and bred, so I don’t know why the beauty of autumn should come as a surprise. Yet, it does.

I drove out to the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center early the other morning. It was so early that the sky was only beginning to turn from gray to blue. The sun was still below the horizon (isn’t the Eastern time zone fun?!) but beginning to send pale pink fingers turning the jets’ vapor trails to a delicate rose. The lake, just across Tabertown Road, was steaming its warmer air into the cool morning and looked as if someone had set it on a burner to boil.

Coming home was better. The sun was well up and turning the trees to flaming reds and glowing yellows as I headed west. The moon was still rather high and made an impressive white circle in the deepening blue. Corn and bean fields were looking dry and ready for harvest.

I was not depressed by the dry stalks. Years ago, when it came time to pick a color for my sun glasses, I chose a rather pinkish brown, so I always seem to look at the world through rose-colored glasses. Even the dry corn stalks and bean bushes looked pink and pretty. All a part of a fall memory to sustain me through the winter.

Of course, every season has its attractions, even winter. There are times, after an especially heavy frost, when the sun turns every blade of grass into a minor miracle. An ice storm coats the smallest twigs in a sheet of glass which shines like crystal when the sun hits it. I WILL say that winter is better appreciated when you don’t have to be out in snow to your boot tops and heavily swathed in coats, mittens and mufflers.

Spring is probably my favorite season. Granted, the pastels of spring are less spectacular than the high color of fall. But the pastels promise life and growth while the spectacular colors of fall are the death throes of what spring has promised — and delivered through summer.

This makes summer my least favorite season. It’s the heat. It’s the humidity. It’s the haze which dulls the brilliant blue of the sky. Like winter, summer is a season best enjoyed from the comfort of air conditioning, inside looking out. My best friend and I don’t exactly argue over it, but he likes the heat. I don’t.

Meanwhile, for as long as it lasts, I’m storing up a mental picture of this fall and its beauty. It should carry me through the winter until the cycle begins again in the spring.

Liz Ciancone is a retired Tribune-Star reporter. Send e-mail to opinion@tribstar.com.