For the first real time this season, the temperature has dropped to fall-like norms. There's a cool breeze in the air, and on it rides the same smells and sounds of the Mile High City I've come to anticipate over the course of 20 love-hate years. The air conditioning is off, the windows are thrown open, and the trees lazily yield their branches to the wind rustling through them even as the leaves begin their metamorphosis from dark greens to pale yellows.
It's fall in Colorado, and today is the day I've waited for all year.
Going away are the shorts, and in their pace come the jeans. (Yes, I wear jeans all the time but dammit, I'm trying to be all imagery-y here...) To the bottom of the drawer go the T-shirts, replaced by long-sleeved henleys and pullovers. Hooded sweatshirts are moved from their pile of shame in the back of the closet and given the Shelf of Honor for easy access. Sweat pants and thick socks are the new shorts and barefoot. Come laundry day, those cotton and satin sheets don't go back on the bed; instead, the blissfully warm and cuddly flannel ones have made their way onto that pillow-top mattress.
Pretty soon cold lemonade and iced tea will be a memory fondly recalled over steaming mugs of hot chocolate and spiced cider. Air fresheners that once caressed the air of your home with the fragrances of linen, mountain air and summer beaches are now tempting you with the pull of fireplaces, falling leaves and pumpkin.
Mmm...pumpkin.
The days may be getting shorter, but the appeal of fall - with its cooler temps, leaf-scattered yards and impending threat of the first snowfall - has, to me, always triumphed over the hot and sweaty "dog days" of summer. Everything blooms in the summer, but I've always felt that the fall is when everything comes alive. Like the last desperate gasp of a dying man, Nature knows she's on her last legs of the year, so she tries valiantly to remind you what beauty she's capable of. Yeah, that may seem a bit too poetic, but admit it, you kinda feel the same way sometimes.
I've lived in a lot of different places in my 37 years. Most of them fall into two categories where the seasons are concerned: They have them or they don't. Colorado usually doesn't have a fall, truth be told. Not like back east, anyway. Here, we don't get the turning of the leaves; the greens, the yellows, the reds, the purples and the browns don't really exist in our semi-arid desert environment. We get the aspens going from green to gold, and though they are a truly beautiful sight to see when you're standing on a mountainside in the middle of them, it's not the same as watching the big maple leaves fall to the ground in a haphazard jumble of rich hues. My family is originally from Ohio, and I spent time in both Virginia and Kentucky (GO EAGLES!!!), so I know what I'm talking about. Even Portland, Oregon, the one incredible time I went there in late October, had some beautifully exciting scenery thanks to the trees. But not Colorado. I miss that, but not enough to make me want to live in God-awful humidity during the summer months. I'll take Colorado's no-colors-when-the-trees-change fall to anywhere else's I'm-sweating-like-a-pig-and-all-I-did-was-blink summer, thank you very much.
A neighbor's tree against the bright blue sky
The view down my street - everything from green to gold to dead
So today is one of the really great days. It's the weekend, which always helps, and the pigskin is getting tossed around both on my television set (tomorrow too...bonus!) and in the park behind the house. Spring may be the start of the life cycle for our planet, but fall is the start of something more profound for me. Something more basic. It's a return to days long gone, but perfectly remembered; a gateway to the joys of childhood and the innocence we find ourselves striving to recapture again as we get older. It's the alpha and the omega - the beginning and the end - of something hardwired into our psyche and updated every year.
It's the first real day of fall, and it's only going to get better from here. At least until the blizzard comes...
2 comments:
Very nice description of Fall! See- you can still write very well. I always enjoyed your descriptive writing. I too love fall and the changing of the leaves, lots of that going on here now in KY :)
Never said I couldn't write, only that I haven't been. Glad you like my style, though. I do miss the fall colors, even in KY, but not enough to move back. Visit, maybe, but that's pushing it. ;)
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