Fall
Fall is characterized by that wet smell that comes up your nose and back into your throat that makes you think you are more alive. There are rustling papers and leaves in the gutters and the trees seem to cry to you that it's time for them to go. The grass holds dew in the mornings and the entire world smells like a cigar and a pizza shop got rolled up and made into a piece of hard candy.
It's the anticipation season. There is electricity in the air in the fall. Crisp. Clean. Cutting. It is heavy and mild like a butterscotch ice cream when it's Sunday and you have to watch the Simpson’s at night.
Something always happens in the fall. Throughout my life I had a string of broken bones for every year in the fall. I have a string of broken hearts to go with them. That was my claim to the passing forgotten months that house Halloween and Thanksgiving. I was in charge or nothing but was merely a boat swept up on the current of the electric season.
Fall is the cliff of life. Fall has it's own flavor unlike spring or winter. Nothing compares to the birth that is summer in its nuances and flourishing undulations of bright blue ribbons and orange streaks of cloth. However, Fall holds anticipation in it's hands like a pack of matches holds the ability to flame up a forest.
Fall will always feel like homework and back yard soccer games that turn into back yard wrestling matches. It does not flinch at sweat pants and runny noses. You embrace your sport jacket and think about chocolate colored clothing. The smell of Sunflower perfume and floor wax come passing by me as if the cool breeze of the this nameless effortless passing season were just there long enough to whisper, "I love you." The trees are harder in the fall and more apt to be leaned against with softer suede jackets and jeans of relaxing touch and fit. There are crushed fingers melding together like velvet strips of pink ribbons. You rub noses instead of crushing tongues as you make your way from warm inside to brisk outside. You have the explosion in your eyes as if something were falling from the sky or someone were coming home to pick you up and hug as you come in the door shaking the degree difference from your shoulders.
It has it's own murky slowness as if there were nothing to anticipate after the fall. You can only anticipate within it and the loneliness, tears, and terrors of life seem to escalate evenly, as if racing to the top of your head to see who wins, with it's brethren love, excitement, and embrace. The drowsy three months hold behind it's dropping eyelids the magic that the world refused to believe in under the playful sun of Summer. It is the old sorcerer coming to sweep you off your feet with gentle arms squeezes and kisses on the forehead.
Fall does not hide it's secrets. Fall personifies itself into the jury of your life. You will come to pass with your senses as if you haven't woken up from good sleep in so very long. Fall will help you explain yourself.
In the morning is when you feel it the most. When the sun is no longer breaking you to rise into the street or to the shower you know Fall has come to nest. When your comforter hides it's pleasantries in the edges near the base of the bed as cold squares of freedom waiting for your toes to nuzzle into them and then nuzzle out. It's the breakfast that smells like more of a necessity than a passive legacy as it pushes you into the crackling leaf morning.
Fall is my love and my nightmare. It is the anticipation of everything and we'll see which of our senses comes to boil the most. We shall see whether my jury delivers me dream or nightmare. Fall will do nothing less than deliver both. Fall is Mother Nature's last chance to say, "I love you" before the winter comes. We should all lean next to her and whisper, "I love you" back.
