My parents named me Autumn so that my maternal grandmother, the unsung poet, could enjoy her favorite season all year long. Naturally, I’m biased in favor of fall as a result, but who isn’t ready for relentless summer to release its sweaty grip come September? Who isn’t ready for crisp air, the decadent aroma of decaying earth beneath leaves?

Just as the scorching heat becomes too much to bear, the Earth tilts on its axis away from the Sun, giving us the gift of longer evenings, cooler days, and an abrupt and welcome change of scenery as sugar maples blush deep red and tupelos enrobe themselves in regal purple hues.

By winter’s end, I’m eager for summer again, practically begging for my first sunburn, having had time to forget July’s oppressive and passionate heat. I am a seasonal person, dissatisfied with stasis, always itching for the next turn of the wheel of fortune to see where I end up and how I’ll fare this particular spin cycle. I’m always hopeful, I think, that I’ll perform better somehow, that I will have learned some secret to surviving with more style.

That said, I am no lover of cold weather. Though I’m always happy for the cozy blankets and apple cider of fall, I avoid tangling with a true winter season at all costs. I went to school in the Appalachian mountains. Experience tells me I can endure blizzards and snow boots, but I’d rather not, so I stay forever south of those regions that offer the most resplendent seasonal displays. Trees in my neck of the woods enjoy temperate falls with minimal frost nipping at their buds and this leads to tepid colors. For an oak or a sycamore to give up the goods, you’ve got to be brutal with them. To elicit the crimson of red maples, the glittering gold of sweetgums, you’ve got to suck dry their sap with drought and shock their roots with bitter, frigid nights.

In fall, we Southerners must look for seasonal splendor elsewhere, and as always, the salt marsh delivers in her own strange way via the scarlet-fingered Sarcocornia  – also known as pickleweed, glasswort, and samphire, which is a mongrelization of its older French name “herbe de Saint Pierre,” or St. Peter’s herb. Sarcocornia only grows along coastal areas where fishing communities are common, so she is connected with the patron saint of fishermen and the protection of those hearty souls who live by the sea.

The scientific name Sarcocornia is derived from two Greek words sarco- and cornia that roughly translate to “fleshy horn,” which is descriptive of the plant’s succulent, fleshy, jointed stems. It sounds a little naughty to me, but that could be the dark turn of my Autumnal mind. My personal favorite name for this wiry, windswept weed is swampfire because it best captures her beauty in the fall, when so much of the south has gone gray-brown.

Swampfire thrives in coastal marshes and salt flats, where more delicate plants fear to tread. Even a dandelion can’t survive the duress of these salt-flecked settings. The saline soil would strip the water from her otherwise stalwart tap root, leaving her to die a thirsty death, gasping for water at the sea’s edge.

But swampfire doesn’t mind; she laps it up, heavy metal, rock salt, and all. She has evolved to survive in this harsh environment by abandoning the lavish leaves and showy flowers that other plants require to make ends meet. In a minimalist flex, she sinks her feet into the sulfurous muck and pulls the salt water up into her veins, lets it course through her bare, juicy stems like it ain’t nothing. She is adaptability incarnate, thriving under challenging conditions by letting go of unnecessary excess.

As she grows, she stores the salt at her fingertips, and when fall arrives, she transmutes the toxins she has accumulated into a show-stopping flush of flaming color thanks to the very same red anthocyanins that our northern neighbors enjoy in the colorful canopies of sourwood and sycamores and smoketrees.

She does more than brighten the otherwise lackluster fall coastline through her survival: she helps her ecosystem flourish. By absorbing excess salt and stabilizing the soil, she prevents erosion. Her stoic temperament makes her essential to her surroundings, providing food and habitat for ducks and geese, rabbits and snails. She’s even considered a delicacy in many kitchens around the world, where she provides an inexpensive source of vitamins and minerals when eaten raw, pulled straight up out of the marsh, or cooked as sea asparagus, her salty tang adding a caper-like crunch to salads and side dishes.

In fall, she’s our own saline-stained sugar maple, and like the trees that shed their leaves elsewhere, she is a reminder to let go of what you don’t need — whether it be habits that do more harm than good, draining commitments to things you no longer care about, or the pressure to constantly expand when everything tells you to curl up into a little ball and hibernate for the winter. She tells us to shift our focus to our core strengths in order to endure and thrive in the face of life’s seasons of struggle, to build our inner resilience so that we can contribute more meaningfully to our communities, and to ride the wheel of fortune wearing our most colorful fall coat for protection against the winds of change when they get chilly.

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