Fall

many people have said much about seasons and fall has not been ignored, but i feel inspired by the season.

for long i have resisted saying i enjoyed a particular season more than another. partly because i felt it was so cliche to have a favorite season, partially because i enjoy all season so much, and partially because i like fall and it seemed even more of a cliche to pick the season that my birthday is in. but alas, yesterday i came to the definate conclusion that fall is my favorite season.

first let me say that my fall of favor falls between the vernal equinox and ends at the winter solstice. this is apparently an american version of the seasons. although i used to think that we were quite stupid for these cycle dates (i mean really fall in the grade school sense ends at the first good snow not in the middle of december), but since i have grown and finally settled on fall as a favorite, the dates coincide quite nicely with the time i find most enjoyable.

yesterday the leaves gently blew across the lawn and concrete of the "lower quad," which may in fact be the upper quad but i don't really pay attention to the naming system around here. the gentle crunch and squish of partly dried leaves starting to decay reached my nose and made me wonder why fall leaves wasn't a perfume. naturally it wouldn't be since most women want to smell appalingly like a bunch of silk flowers (no offense to those scent formulators out there), the gentle smells of fall would be shunned like old books in a dusty corner of a library. but if people who loved, absorbed, enchanted in fall had their way, fall leaves would be a perfume. we would also frequently go around in the morning with a snug sweater, eat lunch in short sleeves with a gentle slant of sunshine warming our backs, and enjoy a mug of hot chocolate curled up on a chair playing a game.

there are many things fall is for me, but most of all it reminds me of things i love about my childhood--new pencils and paper, soup and bread, apple pie, warm shirts, hugs, thanksgiving, family, skiing, reading, crisp air, yellow and red trees sharply contrasted by evergreens, learning. it is possible bad things happen in fall (in fact i am certain they do), but today i choose to remember love.