Fall

Fall is here. Since the first day of the fall season the weather has been convincing; the sky overcast, the temperatures lower, rainy days, and even the leaves are falling, as if on cue. The past week seemed choreographed just to convince me that fall is really here. The weather isn’t the only talisman of the changing season, there are many others.

My summer garden has shut down. Just like that, it has quit producing. The plants are spent. A lacy layer of dried pole bean vine covers almost everything, as if Mother Nature has thrown a tatted tablecloth over the whole garden to say, “Enough.” Dried spears of okra forbid entrance and yellowed tomato vines don’t have the energy to flower.

People are trading in short sleeves for long. Bare brown arms and legs exposed and glistening with summer sweat only a few weeks ago are now hidden behind veils of fabric. Perky pink toenails are no longer peeking out from strappy sandals, but locked inside pumps or loafers or sneakers. And no self-respecting southern woman would dream of wearing a white shoe after Labor Day.

I like fall. The distant sound of the high school band practicing for the football game. The crunch of dry leaves when I walk across my lawn. The odor of chimney smoke on a cool evening. The feel of a warm sweater across my shoulders. The taste of soups or stews seasoned with the last of the summer’s bounty – butternut squash or pumpkin. And there is the feel in the air, that promise of a slower pace. The world seems to be saying, “Take your time, look at me, see what I can do next.”

Hopefully, I will slow down and watch. I’ll watch the Virginia creeper on my backyard fence turn to a brilliant red. I’ll study the downward motion of a particular leaf as it makes its descent. I’ll look up and watch the flying “V” of the Canada Geese as they fill the sky in their migration. I’ll light a fire, I’ll sip red wine, I’ll put my feet up and say, “Don’t you just love this weather?” And then I’ll turn the air conditioning back on and pull out my sleeveless shirts and sandals because Mother Nature was just giving us a glimpse of fall. It will be one-hundred degrees again. I know there is still that Indian summer to come; it’s one of the things I know about living in west Texas.