Rustling. Fading. Bursting. Swirling.

I feel such an affinity with autumn’s leaves as they fade from green to red, red to orange, and eventually to brown on their final withering days.

I, too, change colors. Mood. Feeling.

My mind goes through seasons. Seasons of spring, blooming with fresh ideas and hope. Seasons of winter where the frost freezes everything and nothing dares to peek out.

But autumn.

The beautiful, sunny days just on the edge of chilly where you can feel the pending change. The days where rain soaks everything, turning dreary, drenching most in melancholy.

The season that reminds me of carrying anthologies with dog-eared pages, crunch crunch crunch under my feet.

Gusts of wind tease hair, make papers fly, remind me to breathe deeply.

Fall is where my ink-stained hands learned, loved, lost, and loved again.

For those who don’t get the allure:

Purposely pick out a particularly dry leaf. Then STOMP.

Let the wind ruffle through your hair, no matter what it looks like afterwards.

Sit outside, wrapped in a blanket, with a hot mug of something, and take it in.

Autumn is for the doers. The changers. The memory makers.

So watch that leaf skitter down – its trajectory unknown.

Autumn is the fresh, cold air, the newly picked pumpkin, the time for resting and repair.

Autumn is what makes the most sense in my brain.

The rustling. Fading. Bursting. Swirling.