Photo by Deanna Piercy, taken on my parents’ land
My Facebook feed is full of people all excited about fall. They are sharing pumpkin latte recipes and talking about decorating for Halloween. My Pinterest feed is rife with knitted scarves, hearty soup recipes, and crafts made with fall leaves. I went to visit my parents’ a few days ago and my mom had taken fall decorating to a level rarely seen when temperatures are still frequently in the upper 90s.
I’m happy for everyone who is so eager to embrace their favorite season. Truly, I am. And it’s not that I don’t like fall. Early autumn is quite lovely when the sun begins to lower in the sky and bathes everything in a golden glow. And I do look forward to those first few mildly cool and rainy days because there is little I like better than curling up under a quilt with a steaming cup of tea and a good book and that’s the best weather for it.
However, there’s something about that first leaf I see flutter to the ground that fills me with sorrow and even a bit of dread because of the coming winter. I do my best to talk myself out of it but the truth is I am a summer girl. I was beginning to think I was alone in this until Melanie, a Facebook friend, shared this poem:
Absolute September
by Mary Jo Salter
How hard it is to take September
straight—not as a harbinger
of something harder.
Merely like suds in the air, cool scent
scrubbed clean of meaning—or innocent
of the cold thing coldly meant.
How hard the heart tugs at the end
of summer, and longs to haul it in
when it flies out of hand
at the prompting of the first mild breeze.
It leaves us by degrees
only, but for one who sees
summer as an absolute,
Pure State of Light and Heat, the height
to which one cannot raise a doubt,
as soon as one leaf’s off the tree
no day following can fall free
of the drift of melancholy.
And that, my friends, sums it up perfectly.
I'm excited assuming we have fall. Ha! I love spring and fall, just seems we don't get much of either lately.
It certainly feels like fall today!
Speaking as someone from Central California where Summer lasts from May to October, it is hard for me to enjoy Spring because I realize Summer will soon be coming through the door. Fall is my friend.
I'd like fall a lot better if we didn't have winter. 🙂
You already know how much I agree with you. I WANT to be like everybody else and welcome fall, but it is already tainted by the misery of winter coming.
Yes, we can whine about winter together. 🙂
I have learned to embrace all the seasons, though in former days I was solely a Fall kinda girl. However, I do too feel deep, and I mean it, regret when I see summer end. I told John the other day that as much as I love autumn, I regret the passing of the summer which to me is the reason for all those other seasons.
I *try* to find something to enjoy about winter but other than Christmas I just don't see it. 😉