It’s almost that time of year again. The time when the heat finally breaks with some relief and the air feels cleaner in the mornings. It’s a time when the sun sits lower and comes in sideways through the windows, turning everything gold. The leaves start to change colors, not all at once, but one tree at a time deciding it has had enough of summer. Autumn is almost here.
It starts as a feeling before you can see it. You step outside and the air doesn’t press on you anymore. There’s a coolness underneath the afternoon that wasn’t there in August. At night you leave a window cracked and you actually need a blanket. The light changes most of all. It gets softer, more deliberate, like it wants you to notice things.
And then the color comes. In some places it’s a full blaze, maples going red and orange like they are on fire from within. In other places it’s quieter, a yellowing at the edges, a rust color on the oak, the palmettos holding steady while the sky turns a sharper blue. Either way you find yourself looking up more, watching the leaves turn loose and drift.
It’s the season for having a warm drink in your hands and taking your time with it. Coffee steaming against the cool air, or tea, or cider that smells like cinnamon and apple peel. You hold it with both hands without thinking about it. You sit a little longer on the porch. The world slows down enough to sit with you.
And it’s sweater weather, finally.
That soft, familiar weight of wool pulled over your shoulders. There’s something deeply comforting about that ritual, digging out the old sweaters, finding the one with the frayed cuff you should have thrown away years ago but never will.
Autumn has always been a reflective season. Summer is for doing, winter is for enduring, but autumn is for noticing. For walks that don’t have to get anywhere. For woodsmoke somewhere down the block. For remembering other autumns, other sweaters, other hands holding other warm mugs, and realizing how many of those small, warm moments have stacked up into a life.
It is nearly autumn. It’s time to get lost in a corn maze and dress the scarecrow. You can feel it coming in the evenings, in that first cool breath after a long, hot summer. Take your time and enjoy the cool weather…autumn is almost here.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11
Being About The Journey 