09/26/2025: Just This

Just this once, I don’t want to think about the state of the world outside; I want to enjoy one of my favorite times of year. 

If there was a perfect Monday in existence, it would be last Monday: the first day of fall. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the chance to decorate, light a pumpkin candle, make chili and savor a much needed day-long rain on a cold day. Everything has been perfect, despite the reality outside my window. But I don’t care. Right now, I’m concerned with just this. This feeling in my bones that I am grounded, that I am ready for what this season will bring. I can’t describe the excitement I feel when the air gets cooler and pumpkin everything is on the menu and on the store shelf. It’s such a wonderful feeling in a season that’s about death and decay. It’s not some morbid feeling, but rather a contemplative and meaningful one. 

Fall has always been a season for shedding my past selves, of letting go of things that won’t change in the turning of the leaves. It’s that final breath before the hibernation in the snows of our winter souls. It’s all the pain we’ve carried through the rebirths of spring and the blissful joys of summer, a burden that we can finally lay down on the damp and leaf-covered earth with a weary but relieved sigh. It’s that last reflection on where we’ve been, how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go. And it’s glorious.

In this season of silent musing, I will bask in my place in this world. I won’t take these fleeting moments in time for granted before I have to lay my head down to sleep through the harsh and lonely cold of winter, the season where we forget who we were and suspend who we are in order to wake up to the cherry blossoms, the songbirds and the sunshine to bask in who we are going to be. But until that time comes, I will accept what I cannot change, and I will dream of who I’ll be when I awake in the spring. 

I’ve always felt a strong pull to nature and its seasons; it’s like they speak to me in all these subtle and magnificent ways. In spring, it’s in the flowers and the blue skies. In summer, it’s in the laughter and the rain. In fall, it’s in the brisk mornings and the changing leaves. And in winter, it’s the silently falling snow and treasured time with loved ones. Every season has its purpose, and I cherish each one. But for now, I will gladly welcome the cold embrace of autumn and everything that it brings, no matter what comes after.