It’s not just the colors, actually. After all, the colors are all bunched on one side of the color wheel—greens, and yellows and oranges and reds. And it’s not just the brilliance, mostly pastel—although shafts of occasional sunlight do make the colors glow. What it is is the surprise of it all.
The same thing that makes a Fred Allen joke, or a Fats Waller solo, or a Sinatra song—the unexpected twist. You round a bend or top a rise and there it is, visual overload. A field of weeds backed up by a row of pines and maples, a rather bland vista during most of the year, now shimmers and vibrates, shouting at the senses and tugging at the tear ducts.
Even the dull old oak tree assumes a saucy demeanor, as if the washerwoman had suddenly become Kim Novak. And the gnarled and stunted apple tree is transformed into a tapestry.
Your entire span of awareness becomes an event, a happening, and this remarkable feeling gets branded into your memory. It fades—however gradually—until almost forgotten. Then, when you find it again in a later season, it returns with that sudden rush and the poignance that accompanies a sweet surprise.
Words come close, but pictures don’t. You have to see it.