The Season that Hurts So Good: 3 Reasons I Love Fall...

Oh God, summer began yesterday so why is the air and light already changing?  Why are golden leaves starting to pop from trees like dinner guests arriving too soon?  I want to tell them to wait in the car while I fix my hair and make-up.  

Ready or not, Autumn is here.  The light is lessening.  Days are shorter.  We survived last winter, enjoyed a resplendent spring, a gorgeous summer but now the year’s starting to pack its bags and reserve a bus ticket home.  

I both dread and love this season.  I dread it because winter’s around the corner but I love Autumn for three big reasons…

The cooler air --- I admit, I’m fickle.  While I rejoice in the first glorious rays of hot sun, by end of August I’m ready to move on.  I long for crisp sweater weather and sleeping without ten fans and the A/C cranked to maximum and getting into my car without feeling like I’m on fire.  It’s nice to keep windows cracked and burrow under quilts and blankets.  It’s nice to sleep deeply and not spend half the night tossing covers on and off.  It’s nice to have non-frizzy hair.  

The Productivity -- I love the “look busy” feel of Fall.  It reminds me of that tough seventh grade teacher I had who would enter the classroom and everyone sat up straighter.  There’s a certain Pavlovian conditioning to the sound of a school bus.  I want to buy 3-ring binders and #2 pencils and a fresh pack of highlighters.  I start questioning life and what I’m doing and where I’m going.  What are my plans?  And how will I get there?  And where’s geometry class?

The Poignancy – Fall’s beauty has a doomed quality that makes it both magnificent and heart-breaking.  If Spring is Taylor Swift and Summer’s Katy Perry, then Fall is Billy Holiday, deeper and wiser, a perfect backdrop to those end-of-warm-weather blues.  Fall reminds me that no matter how young and green we all start, everything grows old.  There’s something achingly lovely and sad in those swirls of red, gold and yellow leaves.   

I guess I’m in the fall of my own life.  In my late fifties, I’m no longer spring or summer, but not quite winter either.  I’m not sure how I got here since last week I was on one of those school buses and two days ago I was a young mother and the day after that I watched my kids go off to college. How fast it goes.  I’m not sure how and why this happened but it did and if the clue lies in that crisp air and swirling leaves, they’re not saying.  


How do you feel about Fall?  Comments are always welcome and sharing is awesome...Thank you.