Fall 2014

A writing exercise.

We've watched the approach of autumn for several weeks now. It started at the top of Y Mountain with wild orange leaves and a spattering of gilded scrub oak. It slowly tumbled down the mountain week-by-week unveiling a velvet-like cloak of bunt red and rust until this morning when Ever opened the front door to a wet, whirling world of dancing leaves and golden brilliance.

"Oh, is fall here?" she asked me, mesmerized at the ocular feast, as if to say, "Oh, did fall just come and ring our doorbell?" Yes, it has arrived, and we've been waiting for it to come.

Fall is too short. And sometimes too long. It's too short in its beauty and far too skimpy with daylight. But it's also too long when you're waiting for your seasonal light disorder to put down its weapons of depression and anxiety about winter coming. To be sure, for many of us on this side of the hemisphere, October is the soap opera of months. Beauty and beastly for sure.

Every afternoon we pick red delicious apples off the tree in the backyard. The tree originates from the other side of the fence, but our neighbor generously agreed that we should have access to the heavy fruit that weighs down the boughs onto our side. We always hand one to the baby who devours the juice wide-mouthed on a bed of late-summer grass.

Oh grass. We'll miss you. We'll see you again in March when the baby turns one and the light returns to our eyes. For now we will eat the red apples, rake the yellow leaves off the front porch from the blowing birch trees across the street, wear our sweaters in the morning and sweat them off in the afternoon.

Welcome fall. From all of us, but especially (obviously overly-poetic) me.