Autumn in Florida

wildness, flowers, and other lovely beings

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This is my second autumn in Florida, and I’m learning to love its variations.

I’ve spent autumn in many places, from Seattle to Nepal to Syracuse to Denver to San Bernardino. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I became accustomed to the sweet and mossy smell of damp, decaying leaves and soil soaked through with rain.

One year, when I was eighteen, I collected fall leaves from as many different deciduous trees as I could find and taped them up on my bedroom wall, surrounding myself with different shades of red, canary yellow, tangerine, dull orange, and maroon. What I loved most was the uniqueness of each leaf— each with its own midrib that had once been connected to a branch, a nutrient-absorbing conduit taking in minerals from water funneled upwards through the tree’s capillary system…