Really Truly Feels Like Fall

Here is what the local weather is doing today: Some rain and highs in the low sixties, with wind.

Now, I am going to spare you the ALL CAPS exclamations, emoticons, and a GIF animation of me squealing, but please note that there is a high level of joyful anticipation and pleasure in this weather shift. This is it. This is our weather, our oh-my-gosh-batten-down-the-hatches-where-is-my-coat? weather! And we are not going to be dissuaded from calling it a "storm," and we won't tolerate anyone suggesting that 62 degrees Fahrenheit is "warm." Understand: We are celebrating and embracing our moment of seasonal, fall weather, and blusteriness. And it is good. (Please read that with a solemn and earnest tone in mind, thank you.)

I will find a deciduous tree!

I will spice and heat cider!

I will crochet... something!

I will wear thick socks!

I will give the goats extra oats, and let the hens have scratch!

I will bake something!

I will light a candle, hum a Christmas carol, think about making tamales, or bourbon pecan cake, and I will make up a good excuse to be outside during some part of the downpour, so I can enjoy the chill and exhilarating rush of nature... nature reminding me that life is change, and everything has its season, and there is profound beauty in the wind, the smell of wet earth, the feel of energy in the air.

You see, this is our fall color. Lemon yellow. Citrus green. And while today may feel, finally, refreshingly cool and genuinely seasonal, we may very well return to 80 or 90 degree days, again. We may feel tempted to swim the week before Thanksgiving, or have to run the fan to sleep at night.

Across the street, in a neighbor's yard, a tree is turning color. I gaze at it, and if I don't look left, or right, I can imagine I am in a forest, that these colors are all around me, that a fire is burning in our woodland home, and geese are stopping for a bit before they move south. It could snow. I am enjoying this, very much.