Autumn on the Breeze

From the time I was a small child, Autumn has always been my favorite season. It is the season of ease - life slows and the home becomes the center of life once again. The fragrance of cinnamon, apples and bread signal one to sit down with family and friends...break bread, pass some pie and relish the soft light that falls across the earth in late afternoon. It is a season I associate with warmth, relaxation and comfort.

As a young girl, I grew up in my Grandmother's very formal home. Each season the drawers were emptied and clothes washed, pressed and packed away - making room for the new season. There was an aire of excitement that accompanied these rituals. Linens were washed and placed on the line - wrapped in lavender, tied up in ribbons and packed away for the following Spring. In their place, beds were dressed in soft, blanket like flannel and lush down comforters. Overnight my dresser drawers went from being filled with pale blues, soft yellows and white batiste dresses, to harboring the soft velvety feel of corduroy, lush knit sweaters and soft, vibrant flannels.

My life has not had this formality for a great many years. I find myself craving the comfort of those seasonal formalities. There is a sense of expectation that stirs in my soul - as if waiting for something amazing to happen. I realized I missed the changing of the guard, so to speak. Out with the old, in with the new. A cleansing in the most delicate of ways. We don't know that sense of seasonal boundaries here...one is nearly the same as the other, separated only by the amount of fog or range of temperature.

This Autumn I will spend a week driving through Vermont. I want to feel that "thing" again...the crunch of leaves beneath my steps, the chill of an early morning breeze upon my skin and the smell of an apple orchard bursting with fruit. I can't wait. I have my camera, my notebook and a love for all that is crimson and gold. Like the brilliant leaves upon the trees, I know that Winter is near...and I have much to do before she breathes her crystalline breath upon the earth.

I have leaves to share
and colours to bare..
yet still,
as the morning aire
grows chill,
in my heart
it is Autumn still.

Here's to apples right from the tree, cinnamon in hot spiced tea and scarves so soft they touch the soul!