The Fall Doldrums

Autumn in New England is a thing of beauty. It brings warm days and cold nights; a new wardrobe (or, at least, bringing out stuff I'm not sick of!); and, oh the colors!

Then comes fall.

Now, you ask, aren't "autumn" and "fall" one and the same? I suppose, technically speaking, they are. But, to me, autumn is a time of promise, while fall is the reality. In autumn, the children return to school, excited to start a fresh, new year. We go shopping for new school clothes, and they excitedly wait for it to be cold enough to wear their new acquisitions. Homework isn't so bad when you can race through it and then go outside until dark. It's fun to settle down for the evening with the older members of the family after the younger ones (whose late summer bedtimes are now curtailed) are in bed, either watching the new TV shows, or sitting by the fire working on a crochet project that was too big and bulky to work on in the summer. Long autumn Saturdays and Sundays bring soccer games and the slowing up of yardwork, as the cooler weather makes the weeds and grass stop growing faster than you can cut them down. The same cooler weather, and the onset of late-season vegetables, brings out the Dutch oven for some good old-fashioned pot roast or roast chicken (and then the soups that result from the leftovers). Yes, life is good in autumn.

Then the bloom wears off the rose--or the leaves fall off the trees, to be more exact. I spent most of Sunday cleaning up leaves and getting flower beds ready for winter. I went out this morning for about an hour, and then later this afternoon, again. Well, I think I did--it's covered with leaves already. The weather is gray and rainy. It's been down in the 30's on many mornings, so I guess it's time to pull out the winter coats and figure out where to put them. Daylight savings time ended this past weekend, and now the kids race outside to play for a bit before doing homework--it's 4:50 pm as I sit here writing this, and it's already dark out, so the kids are now stuck in the house.

Then, as I sat outside the middle school this afternoon (where I sit MOST afternoons these days), I thought I might have seen a flake. It wasn't--it's too warm and muggy this afternoon. But, for just a moment, I got excited, because, after all, winter is just around the corner. Every season has its beauties and, while I'll probably sit here complaining by mid-January, there's nothing more exciting than the first snow. And, I have that to look forward to.

And that's my silver lining for today.