Maybe my favorite season. Fall can still feel like summer when it starts and can be definitely wintry when it ends. It’s got moxie, drama, sensation. It’s not the sappy, coy pinks, blues and pale yellows of spring or the constant multiple green shades of summer. Fall is bright oranges, reds, and yellows that can razzle dazzle you when a shimmering sun is just about to drop below the horizon. Fall is unpredictable, a strong blow can bring those leaves to the ground, covering everything in site.
Fall is messy. I think that may be what I like so much about it. Spring and summer you work in the garden, weeding, trimming, grooming beds. You are taming nature. It all can look so lovely and so perfect. But nature isn’t. Fall reminds us that nature can be wild and wicked. That it can be a blaze of glory or it can be the frightening shadow of a tree stripped bare of its leaves looking like a fearsome skeleton.
I’m a neat person. There is not a box and container store that I don’t like. Sorted, categorized and labeled, I totally embrace the tidy, the ordered, the system. I always said it was because I had a messy mind, undisciplined, off-track, screaming sometimes for free rein. Clutter is fraught with tension for me. I can feel the muscles across my shoulders tighten, my heart thumps, my pulse races. Clutter is not for the faint of heart.
And still. Fall is my favorite. There is no way to control it. Each year, year in and year out, fall is a test for me. This year, like so many wonderful ones before, let the leaves fall. Let them cover the grass, get caught in the rain chain, slip through the cracks in the deck. Let them blow across the driveway, pile up under the bushes, slip in under the garage door. Never mind. I’m okay with the mess. All too soon all of it will be bland, uniformly bare and winter. Then, only three more seasons to go before Fall is back.