Thankful for Autumn

"It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life." ~P.D. James

Autumn has always been my favorite time of year. It must have started with my utter love for the beginning of a new school year. New school supplies, new clothes, new teacher, new subjects. Then there was Halloween, a much anticipated holiday. I've had a sweet tooth for as long as I can remember, so this getting to ask the neighbors for candy tradition was right up my alley! As I got older, I began to appreciate the sheer beauty of the season, from the changing leaves to the break from summer heat.

High school brought chilly, Friday night football games and Homecoming activities. College offered the freedom of a flexible schedule that allowed for day trips around the gorgeous counties in the New River Valley area of Virginia. Then adulthood and setting up my own home sparked my obsession with decorating and baking for the season.

And yet, it seems that the quintessential trappings that define this season live in vague, hazy reminisces deep within my psyche. Once or twice during this season, I'll catch a wisp of them in a scent, or breeze, or scene. I'm overcome with emotion and longing for something fleetingly intangible but still very much apart of me. Mere shadows of memory, so faint that I pause to consider whether or not they are real or imagined.

It seems a bit odd to say I'm thankful for this but I am. I think that every Autumn I experience keeps those snatches of dream-like memories alive. Autumn is always quite real for me and I do everything I can to embrace as much of it as I can each year. I'm thankful for a season that speaks to the very core of who I am. A season that wraps me in comfort. A season that brings delight and joy. A season that gives me color and light before the dull, dark days. Before the season that will rob me of all those gifts and leave me weary and raw and broken.

‎"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