By Dr. Tim Seelig—
Stop! Before you read another sentence, close your eyes and think about what fall means to you. Your eyes aren’t closed. I’ll give you another chance. Close your eyes. Now, say the first thing that comes to mind. There are some obvious choices and others you may not have thought of.
We fall in, and out, of love. Sometimes both happen in the same fall. We fall out of the bathtub or down the stairs. Then there’s the tale about the fall of man. It’s a fun one. It was a short fall, but, boy, we can’t seem to live it down. Speaking of shortfall, we often have those these days.
For most of us, the obvious choice is the season we call fall. Even if you live in places like Palm Springs, there’s a little chill in the air as the temperature drops to 90. If you live in other parts of North America, you are seeing physical hints of fall in reds and golds with gray skies as a backdrop. Fall is many peoples’ favorite season. We get out warm sweaters, put pumpkin spice in every food group possible, and welcome goblins and ghosts and turkeys. You can’t not love fall.
I was curious why we use the word fall for this autumnal season. Before the 13th century, the season was known as harvest. By 1300, the Latin-derived word autumnus was used. I’m fond of that one. In the 1600s, writers used “the fall of the leaves.” By the 17th century, the word traveled across the Atlantic as simply “fall.”
I have a different immediate response to the word. For me, fall is the most dangerous thing that can happen to old brittle bones and joints. If you have an older person in your life, you know this as well. Those of us of a certain age are all frightened of a fall. It’s happened to me a few times. Last time was in Bali. My father was a faller. Some years after my mother passed, dad had to move to assisted living because the firemen he used to call to pick him up reached their max number of fall calls from one faller. They may have also realized he just needed some attention. According to dad, “They were so nice.”
He never did get an “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” necklace. His first big fall was at around 85 when he decided to climb a ladder to get their cat down off the roof. The dumb cat would have been fine, of course. Snowball got up there on his own. Worst of all, he did nothing to help dad when he fell. It’s not like Lassie when Timmy fell down the well. He immediately went for help. This started a spiral for dad, as it often does.
When I was a teenager, there was no such thing as a weave so prevalent in today’s newscasters turned politicos. When girls didn’t think they had enough hair, they went to a local drugstore or beauty parlor and purchased a fall. It was very fashionable. I think it was attached up under their normal hair with combs, clips, or staples. I do know that when a fall was piled on the top of a girl’s hair, it was a bun or a beehive or, if it was a fancy girl and gathered at the nape of the neck, it was a chignon. How did I know that, as a teenager, but didn’t know the name of the football team? Your guess.
You know I can’t write an article without music references. The concept of falling was introduced early. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, not a small fall. London Bridge came falling down. How scary is “Ring around the Rosie, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down”?! Here’s the really fun part about how we scar our children with nursery rhymes. A rosy rash was a sign of the Great Plague. Posies were carried to ward off the smell, and ashes helped add color, referring to cremation. OK, children, let’s sing it again! This time, with feeling.
There are lots of grown-up falling songs. “The falling leaves drift past my window” because it’s fall. There are apparently competing songs between Alicia Keyes’ “Falling” and Harry Styles’ “Falling.” Alicia penned these arresting lyrics, “Oh, baby, I, I, I, I’m fallin’, I, I, I, I’m fallin’. Fall, fall, fall, fall.” Harry wrote, “I’m falling again, I’m falling again, I’m falling. What if I’m down? What if I’m out? What if I’m someone you won’t talk about? I’m falling again, I’m falling again. I’m falling.” Both are inspiring pieces of literature. We may as well go back to the Plague tunes. To round it out, there’s “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” and, for the holidays, the climactic exhortation, “Fall on your knees. Oh, hear the angel voices.”
You knew you were going to get music references. Now it’s time for a few church references; I can’t help it. You know the church folk talk about fallen women. I think I may have been put in that category along the way. Satan messed up and took fall—right out of heaven into hell. Then there is the great peril of falling from grace. Oh, Lort. There is so much to worry about. If I remember, you can’t fall from grace unless you ask politely and often.
Let’s get back to the big one: The Fall of Man. Poor Adam. He simply had a hankering for an apple. I’ve been there. I’ve never been offered an apple by a naked lady, though. That would not have done it for me. If I had been Adam, I would not have been tempted by Eve and we could have lived happily ever after as BFF’s. Besides, I’m not an apple person ever since having braces in my youth; that, and corn on the cob. Anyway, a naked lady walks up with a lovely apple (which I assume were everywhere) and a snake (not walking). I’m also assuming snakes were nice before the fall.
Adam and Eve didn’t even know they were naked. Like a doofus, Adam ate the apple. Then, the snake hissed, “Y’all need sssssome clothesssss,” to which they obviously said, “What are those?” I have no idea how the snake described them or how they knew which parts to cover. As children we were told those were the “dirty parts”—even after a bath. That’s probably what the snake said, pointing at them as best he could. The dirty thing has carried over today. Even Carrie’s mother called her newly emerging breasts, “dirty pillows.”
Whew! After all of that, did I cover the meaning you imagined when your eyes were closed (even though we know they were not closed)? I started this article intending to write the whole thing on the season. Then my distracted/demented mind just took off. I have had so much fun letting it go where it wished. To wrap up, I love the fall season. I intend to be very careful to avoid a fall. I am not worried about a fall from grace and I’m good with sliced apples. I didn’t sing about ashes with my Grand Girls during a recent late October visit, even though that song is a pretty good one for Halloween.
Since this article was about fall, maybe next month I’ll tackle “rise”!
Dr. Tim Seelig is the Conductor Laureate of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. http://www.timseelig.com/
TLC: Tears, Laughs and Conversation
Published on November 5, 2026
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