Winter in Ganymede

Autumn is a beautiful thing. It's like nature fires off one last, brilliant burst of energy that flares into the most stunning colours you've ever seen. But as that old saying goes, the brighter the star the shorter the life. And so once that final putsch to revolutionize the world's palette we're plunged into surroundings of sudden greys and dull browns. After a flaming golden leaf makes it's graceful and surreal decent into the gutter, it stays there. And just like someone bleeding away life, the colour is ever-so-gradually evicted. Grass and shurbs follow suit, shedding into duller suits of appearance.

And it stays this way, as the wind howls around corners, clouds overtake the sky, and precipitation slowly, but surely, pelts a lifeless world below. In mid to late autumn it means that the once-golden leaf sitting in the gutter goes from stiff and rigid to horribly saturated with water. It turns into a pulp and is inevitably ground away to mesh into its surroundings. And this turns into a cycle where the pulp dries and becomes wet again to be mixed in with even more remnants of greenery.

But when the air cools just enough, the pulp freezes. And instead of rain there's snow. Somewhat reminiscent of the vibrant leaves that made their only decent. It's almost like nature took a step back, saw the bland world and mush collecting in the gutter and said "It's not supposed to look like that!" So it blankets the world with glorified white-out. So it snows and snows to cover up the mistake until a break comes. The snow melts and lo and behold, things are still brown and ugly, but not so much mushy as slushy. Natures says to itself "well, crap..." and tries gain. It repeats ad naseum, until somehow on the other side things come out green.

But in the mean time we squint our eyes as we leave warm abodes for the unbearably chilly outdoors. The snow may bring its own surreal coating to the landscape, but we all know it's just that: a coating. And underneath it conceals the same browns and greys that was left there.

But in the mean time, we need to put up with nature and it's "nothing to see here folks, ha ha ha..." More snow, more slush, and back to brown. It may be beautiful while it lasts, but it's just more of the same.



Today they cut down the tree I could see from my desk. It's pretty depressing - sure, we'll get to see the wonderfully vivid horizon of blue skies and sunsets from our office chairs, but it's no substitute for that brief and spectacular piece of Autumn. I liked watching the tree flow in the wind and bloom in the spring. But most of all, I'll miss the outrageous yellows it churned out before calling in quits and waiting for the snow to come gloss over what it had become.
-Cril

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where treetops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow

Michael Bublé - White Christmas