Autumn

Raking up a boy

It comes on so quickly.  No sooner are we enjoying the last dregs of summer, eking out a final barbeque with friends and basking in the warmth of the sun, that seemingly only mere days later autumn arrives.

In some climates, this transition may seem gradual; the coming of the new season only noted on the calendar even as the balmy temperatures persist late into November.  I recall while living in San Diego how bored I had become with what I called “Dick and Jane” weather.  Each day seemed as pleasant as the last and the TV weatherman craving to report on a stray thunderstorm or dip in the mercury.

When I returned to the Midwest, this transplanted Canadian girl found herself quickly reminded of all the joys of the passing seasons and delighted in the sights, smells, and sounds of a brisk autumn day. 

How glorious is it to feel the sun’s rays upon your face as you regard the seemingly millions of shades of leaves descending quietly, one by one, to the earth below?  What a pleasure it is to listen to the wind whistling through the branches, coaxing even more leaves to the ground!  And once upon the ground, what a magnificent blanket Nature provides to us, resplendent in her fiery glory, and just daring us to scrunch-scrunch along the sidewalks, as we may have done in our childhood? 

While my return to this climate has now topped over a decade and while I’ll admit I long for lazy, hazy Southern California days, it still humbles me to take rake in hand, gathering up the hundreds, even thousands, of little bearers of Autumn’s palette, making piles for my son to leap into, and, for a moment, bring me back full-circle to my own youth. 

I treasure each Autumn day and as surely as one mourns the passing of a dear friend, so too do I feel a pang of sadness when the final leaf spirals earthward and the now-naked branches reach toward a snow-filled sky. 

Yet, with each passing season, it’s only a few months before once again I am treated to this amazing season and inspiration floats to me on a brisk October wind.

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Tagged as: autumn, inspiration, leaves, midwest, nature, October, raking