Neighbor Peeping

Some prefer spring with its blooming flowers and warming temperatures, while others relish summer with its beaches and outfits of sandals and shorts. But I love fall. I love the crisp temperatures and the less crowded weekdays around town as people go back to school and back to work. For all of us indoctrinated by the perpetual cycle of education, it's when the new year really starts, when the new seasons for TV, film, music, dance and all the arts kick off in earnest. And from an aesthetic standpoint, it has my favorite look, as the trees and bushes turn from their summertime greens to reds, yellows and russets. Whether it's in the hills and mountains as you head further up or down county or country, in your own backyard, or even the side streets of cities and towns, it's a color pallet that has no equal.

Starting in the far north and working its way south on a weekly rolling basis, the peak of that display is always a moving target. Still, depending on where you live, as you read this you are likely hovering somewhere in or near the sweet spot. While it was in the 1860's that Emily Dickinson penned "The Maple wears a gayer scarf / The field a scarlet gown," credit goes to Vermont's Bennington Banner newspaper in the mid 1960's for originating the expression "leaf peeping." Since then, an entire tourism sub-industry has sprung up to cater to those heading to the mountains to see what Henry David Thoreau called the "the month of painted leaves."

However glorious it is, the season is a short one. The inevitable and eventual conclusion is that those same works of natural art drift down to the ground. What's left is a tangle of bare branches above, and a carpet of crispy crunchables below. In the woods it's merely a noisy coating, while for homeowners it begats a season of raking and blowing to gather up the detritus so it doesn't kill the grass or clog the cutters. 

But that process allows for a new activity. While your nearest fellow neighborhood dwellers may have been more or less shielded from your non-intentional prying eyes for the last 6 months, not so now. Through no fault of them nor affirmative action from you, that veneer of seclusion has been drifting away. And as those oaks and maples and birches shed their leaves, what's left is a see-thru scrim of branches that don't hide nuthin'. And that enables a new activity: neighbor peeping. 

Not to be confused with being a Peeping Tom or Tom-ess, with its connotation of intentional nefarious unwanted spying, this is much more accidental and casual catching-a-glance. Those who live in close quarters have mastered the art of not seeing what is in front of them, of averting their eyes from obviously unintentional exposure by a neighbor. But those of us with some separation as well as natural screening between us and the next haven't had to cultivate said talent. Meanwhile, on the peep-ee side, it doesn't mean that folks lead an exhibitionist lifestyle, just a more lackadaisical one concerning privacy. After all, no need to draw the blinds when the oak tree or hydrangea bush does it for you.

Not so at this time of year. The change of season creates a slow striptease of open windows. Walk through your neighborhood, glance from an upper floor across the street or drive home after dinner, and you are likely to see interiors that weren't meant to be exterior-ed. It might be a new painting on the wall or arrangement of furniture, folks eating dinner or a large screen TV showing "The Real Housewives of Wichita." And it's also likely you will see someone talking on the phone while walking around the living room sans pants, still another lip syncing to Taylor Swift in the front of the bedroom window, both formerly screened from prying eyes by maple leaves. 

We live in an "out loud" society, where so much that once was once private is now public. But with Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube it takes an intentional act to post something. As fall turns to winter and the leaves disappear, we may be posting publicly whether we want to or not. So remember as the natural curtains start to drift open that perhaps it's time to draw yours.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford loves walking and looking around. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.