Fall. In Love

Posse!  For as long as I can remember I have had a .. complicated relationship with Autumn (I prefer Autumn to Fall but Autumn. In Love … weird).  It’s always been a time of melancholy, heralding the onset of Winter as it is wont to do and I suspect I really hated Winter because I had to take the bus or El train everywhere and standing there, shivering, was not the best way to start the day.  But underneath the dislike… there was a bit of romance, always tinged with dismay… drama… Heathcliff and Cathy-level angst, you get the drift.  I would swan down the sidewalk, dreaming of swanning across the moors… sigh.  (dunno how folks swan across moors in Winter – sounds like a chilly time of it and slippery, like white knuckling it across the Michigan Avenue Bridge after a heavy permafrost snow on a holiday weekend… or swanning across the IBM Plaza holding onto the ropes so you don’t get blown off the plaza, slick as frozen snake snot, into the icy river… obviously it’s not AUTUMN I hate so much as what follows.

However.  I ain’t gonna whine about Autumn OR Winter (okay – maybe Winter.  We’ll see).  Because… you know what?  Despite some minor challenges my Life is bubbling along quite nicely, thankyouverymuch.  So STFU! is the order of the day.   Instead, I took myself on a drive around the countryside (fwiw, ‘countryside’ is, quite literally, about 3oo feet from my house!).   I wanted to focus on the beauty of the season, rather than relegating it to Winter’s sidekick.  Harvest is in full swing and while the massive combines are throwing up corn dust 1/4 mile into the air, resulting in everyone sneezing, wheezing, scratching (and fully explaining why farmers look so… weathered… ), there is also a peculiar sense of grandeur to the whole process.

That photo is about 1000 acres,  5 minutes from my house.  It’s both unnerving and awe-inspiring, to see it completely denuded of corn.  Next year it (should) will be beans – not nearly as grand as corn (when they are ready to pick soy looks like 1000 acres of stubby dessication.  If you didn’t know it was beans you’d think it was weeds!)

Closer to home at the North edge of town, hayfields have been harvested.  It’s a bizarre thing, having hay/corn/beans 50 feet from your neighbors’ deck!  But the sight of the second harvest of hay signals ‘the frost is on the pumpkin and the hay is in the barn’ – preparation for the Winter season.  I…kinda.. like it, since at heart I’m a bit of a prepper.  Getting the hatches battened and all that, don’tchaknow.

Closer to home (in my front yard, in fact) the bees are relentless!  My asters are covered in bees, as they bring as much pollen as possible back to the hives.  The rise and fall back onto the flowers in great waves and the sight of them in the sharp Autumn noontime is very cheering.  With any luck (and a lot of hard work on their part) they’ll have enough food to make it through the Winter.

I’m thrilled with this newfound love of Autumn.  I suspect I’ve always loved it just a little bit (the prepping for Winter, the ability to turn on the oven again, the smell of cinnamon and brewing hot tea) but I never allowed myself to think about it too much.  Now that I live in a place where seasons are In Yo’ FACE! I kinda don’t have a choice.  But there is beauty in so many things during this transitional season – even the things that herald the onset of Winter.  And I’m glad I’ve awakened enough to notice…. and maybe fall in love with it… just a little bit.

Oh!  Vintage Ubar, Uncle Serge’s Daim Blond (imo the perfect Fall scent) and the fruity leather of  Cuir de Lancome help, too.  I was going to try De Profundis… but I thought that might be pushing it juuuuust a bit.  I don’t want to be known as That Crazy Lady Who Cries in the Cornfield.

How do you feel about this particular seasonal shift?  Getting the cider mugs and Fall-forward perfumes out?  Ready to break out the sweaters and cute boots?….. or are you curled up in a corner of the sofa, ready to sob until Spring arrives again?  Out crying in a cornfield? (I don’t recommend it – folks’ll look at you funny)