It happens every year. As summer wanes and colder weather moves in, the leaves turn color and begin to fall. It’s my favorite season, albeit a melancholic one, so I sling my camera ‘round my neck every October and hit the road in search of autumnal foliage.

I’m old, and everything I own is old, including my vehicle and its accoutrement—that’s French for “equipment for a particular activity”—so I still use a CD player in my beloved old truck.

I don’t speak French, but wish I did, as the dog-eared Post-it on my bathroom mirror can attest. “Learn French,” it taunts me on a daily basis, as I peer around the little yellow square to shave.

Still, everything sounds better (IMHO) in French, so I slip a still-shiny disc into the old CD player and help my old dog into her car seat.

Sighing, I sing along to “Les Feuilles Mortes” as I drive, having memorized the words many moons ago.

“C’est une chanson

Qui nous ressemble

Toi tu m’aimais

Et je t’aimais.”

The music and words, written by Joseph Kosma and Jacques Prévert, are haunting in both languages, but Johnny Mercer’s translation (“The Autumn Leaves”) is ever-so-slightly less depressing than the French, which is translated literally as “The Dead Leaves.” Sigh.

“The falling leaves

drift by my window

The autumn leaves

of red and gold.”

I’ve always thought that the first frost is what causes the leaves to change color, but looked it up online to be sure. According to the Smithsonian Institution (www.si.edu), “Trees that have leaves that change color in fall are deciduous.” This in turn made me look up “deciduous.”

Turns out that those trees usually have large, broad leaves, while evergreen (aka coniferous) trees stay green to continue the photosynthesis process through the winter. “As the season changes, temperatures drop and days get shorter. Trees get less direct sunlight, and the chlorophyll in the leaves breaks down, which reveals yellow and orange pigments that were already in the leaves but masked during the warmer months.”

I had also heard that raking and bagging leaves is counterproductive to Mother Nature’s life cycle, so I looked that up too, following a particularly colorful photo excursion.

 According to the Gardening Channel (dot com) “28 percent of household waste was food and yard trimmings. Prevent waste by letting leaves be,” it suggests, “or carefully mov[e] them to create wildlife habitats.”

I’m all for cutting down on manual labor, but moving the leaves seems prudent, since ticks love leaves; neither Dharma nor I need Lyme disease. Again.

Assuming that the French lyrics are depressing, I was momentarily happy that I had no idea what they actually mean, and got back into the truck singing along.

“Mais la vie sépare

Ceux qui s’aiment

Tout doucement

Sans faire de bruit

Et la mer efface sur le sable

Les pas des amants désunis.”

As it turns out, Mercer’s English version is pretty sad too.

“Since you went away

The days grow long

And soon I’ll hear

Old winter’s song

But I miss you most of all, my darling

When autumn leaves start to fall.”

Happy to have captured some of October’s glory, I’ll do my best to hold onto that, instead of lamenting what’s missing, and bundle up for the long winter months.

Just yesterday, I watched the autumn leaves drift past my window, petted the dog and sighed, feeling fairly French. “Well, it was great while it lasted, old girl,” I whispered, “but Fall just fell. I mean ‘tomber est tombé.’”

Fun Fact: The word “melancholic” means “feeling or expressing pensive sadness, as in a haunting melancholic melody.” It’s Greek, not French.