Nature’s Confetti

good-bye-summer

I usually go into Fall figuratively kicking and screaming. I love long, lazy, warm/hot summer days with nowhere to be. This year was particularly hard for me to relinquish summer. We had a shorter school break than normal and we traveled quite a bit, so I was especially enjoying what time I had at home with my kids. I seem to be a rare breed of mother who is not anxious for school to start in the fall. I really love hanging with my children. Of course they get on my nerves, but nine times out of ten, we have fun together particularly without the pressures of sports schedules and homework assignments.

me and kids

In the Northern Virginia area, we can experience summer-like weather late into October. This just increases my resistance to transition to autumn. But as the temperatures finally begin to dip, I start to slowly meander into the fall season. You’ll see me give up my shorts in exchange for jeans (For the record, once I give up the shorts for the season, they are gone. If we have another day at 90 degrees, I’m gonna sweat it out in my dungarees. (And I must interject that the word dungarees makes me laugh. It’s SOOOO 70’s. LOL. I bet my kids have never even heard that word. LOL. I digress……)). October 1 is the day that opens the floodgates to The Holidays! I LOVE the Holidays (which to me consist of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years). The Holidays are the redemption for me freezing my @$$ off until April.

holiday mode - engage

Behind Pumpkin and the spicy smells of autumn, next up on my list of favs is the falling of the leaves. Although I do prefer to see the leaves actually ON the trees in spring as they are sprouting, and definitely in their colorful splendor this time of year, I’m tremendously mesmerized watching the leaves catch the wind and swirl and twirl their way to the ground. If you listen closely, you can almost hear them scream WEEEEEE with glee as they go. (That’s how I imagine it. I like to reenact that for my kids. Especially the teenager. He’s so mortified. He tries hard not to smile.) When I get to witness this gorgeous dance, I like to think, if only there was some lovely music in the background, it would feel like a glorious moment in a movie. (In truth I imagine Vince Guaraldi’s “Skating” from A Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack.) So perfect in it’s display of grace and beauty, that it’s almost as if it had to be staged. It’s like Mother Nature’s confetti. A last hurrah before the starkness and brown/black snow of winter.

fallen leaves meme

Taking in the technicolor show of the trees, and watching the leaves fall literally fills my soul. I truly could get lost in those moments leaving the rest of real life to be forgotten while I witness and absorb this amazing gift called Fall. Autumn can be, sometimes, a very short season. Perhaps that’s why the majesty of it seems so very special year after year. As I reluctantly release my vice grip on summer, I turn my sights to the beauty of the new season. The colors, the flavors, the way my husband gets so excited when the temperature plummets, these are my life preservers that I will cling to as I layer up and carry on.

falling leaves instagram