Autumnal Splendor

I get a little fixated with autumn if you couldn’t tell. Every day brings new surprises, new changes in the days, the leaves, the weather. I probably say it about spring when winter is getting chased out by warmer weather, but when I am entering autumn and living it, it is my favorite season. For starters, while I love the beach and everything outdoors in the summer, I personally prefer a cooler temperature. There are less mosquitoes, I can work harder and hike longer without sweating, and I find it to be much more pleasurable in general. Then you add into that the fact that the trees begin to bleed molten lava as their leaves change and are fire lit and descend to blanket the earth, and I am all in even more for the outdoors. Personally, I love the smell of autumn as well, as much as it comes from all the pollen being dispersed into the air and leaves beginning to decompose. Put all these factors together and they make for a perfect season. Then you add in the fact that with the falling leaves and cooling days, Thanksgiving will be at our doorstep before we know it, and that becomes the icing on the cake. As much as stress seems to pile up this time of year, so do the opportunities to dispel that stress.

Every early morning walk these days is a treat, new trees showing their true autumnal colors, and it all happens so quickly. One day its hot and the middle of summer, the next the trees are changing, cool breezes blowing, and soon I know there will be frost covering everything first thing in the morning. As I hike the woods, the beech and birch trees are the first to turn, their leaves turning molten gold, falling on a whim, like snow all around with the gentlest of breezes. And as they fall, I can see farther and farther through the trees, their bare branches showing themselves again. There seems to come with this season a new urgency thrust upon the forest animals to bulk up before winter arrives and their food sources disappear. Everything is changing, and I guess in a sense, so am I. No season is ever the same, regardless of how similar they may look. This autumn will only happen once, everything unique in its own right, including us who travel through it. Take the time then to sit with it, enjoy it while its here, because before we know it, autumn will be gone and winter will be knocking, begging for entrance into our lives.