I can feel it in the air. Finally, the cool nights and brisk days of Autumn are here. I can put on a sweater and make hot tea. I can turn on the fireplace and enjoy the warmth it brings to my home. It's especially nice as my great room and kitchen are done in the colors of Fall. Some soft music on the sound system makes it complete. It's a Fall chill out.
Perhaps it is my age, but sometimes it is the things that comfort me that bring back the good memories from the past I remember football games, and dances and slumber parties. I can sit back and reminisce about the old days at Cohn High when I could go outside on a Friday afternoon and hear the band marching to the football field for the big game! Those crisp afternoons and evenings when I was young still hold a place in my heart. And I remember meeting my first love in September, 1965. That was 46 years ago last month. But I don't think you ever forget the season - every nuance and texture of the season - when you fell in love the first time.
I really don't think I appreciated any particular season when I was young the way I do now. Oh, Summer was great, but only because school was out. But to just appreciate a season for its feel, color, and textures - no, we didn't do that. The young truly do feel immortal. It's probably the best and the worst part of being young. I often hear it said, "Youth is wasted on the young." We don't begrudge the young their youth, but it is sad to see the way very young people overlook so much that they will someday remember and think about, and it will be an integral part of their memories, yet it wasn't fully appreciated at the time they experienced it. If you're over 30, you know what I'm talking about. We all did it.
Perhaps I feel such an affinity with this Fall season because I feel like that is where I am in my life right now. It's all about the intensity - beautiful colors, crisp days and nights, beautiful scenery, road trips to just take it all in and enjoy. But, soon, the leaves will fall, and the landscape will be barren. It's a little scary, but so far I have made all the transitions without losing anything of who I am. And I feel like I've made a number of improvements over the years. I love, but I love more expansively. I give more things a chance right down to the music I listen to. I've learned to like broccoli. I pay more attention to my body - but not just the way it looks. God knows we were all obsessed with that when we were young. I support causes in which I believe. When I was 17 I was one-dimensional. That is not so now.
I am rambling, but then that's what this is all about. These are the ramblings of "a woman of a certain age" And "a woman of a certain age" is, without a doubt, experiencing the Fall season on a number of levels - it's outside my door, and it's inside my heart.
I wrote a poem about Fall. It's for all of you who enjoy it as much as I do - the cooler temperatures, the beautiful colors, the memories we all have that are so connected to this season.
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Transition from Green to Gold
Some would claim melancholy at the end
Of the hot summer and reason,
That the beginning of the autumnal
procession is a prelude to a bleaker season.
I see the palette of a divine inspiration,
With deft strokes and colors that defy
imagination.
We are surrounded by the most magnificent
array.
Gold and red and yellow join together to
play,
On our senses in the most delicious way.
Autumn is God's time to use colors bold,
And to watch his creation meld together in
A fantastic transition from green to gold.
© Faye Combs
Get out there and enjoy this beautiful Fall weather, and have a cup of hot tea and think of me.
"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." ~George Eliot
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