The Leaves of Summer

If you grew up in Northern Europe, as I did, falling leaves produce an instant emotional reaction. Perhaps you feel a tinge of sadness -- the summer is over, another year is more than half-gone, the days are getting shorter. I have spent many a year in Spain, but I am still confused by the crunching of leaves under my feet that comes with high summer. The trees in Barcelona at least just give up on all that greenery sometime between mid-June and late July. For several weeks, while temperatures are around 30 degrees or more, the streets are brown and yellow with leaves. I guess that in a way, we get the best of all possible worlds -- all the sweet nostalgia of autumn, and the heat of high summer.