Sun.  Impossibly blue sky peeking through darkened, ominous at times clouds.  The stark contrast of the bare aspens and the deep green pines.  A breeze sending what’s left of the clinging leaves floating and spiraling down.  The scent of wet leaves covering the ground–musky, woodsy, earthy.

All portending the coming of winter, the anticipation of the first good snow.  The excitement of digging out the skis and the sled and the ice skates and the decorations.  The coming of the holiday season with its sparkles and merry and bright and turkeys and pilgrim hats and giving and receiving and thanking.  The inkling of things to come–of festivities with family and friends and the shortest day and the longest night.  The promises of joy and laughter and yummy, delectable smells–gingerbread, peppermint, pumpkin, evergreen.

Fall can be heartbreaking for me.  The summers are so incredibly short here.  The autumnal colors so spectacular.  My senses get overwhelmed and I bounce back and forth between awe at the world around us and despair at the death of the season.  I soar with the autumnal sights and smells and then crash back to earth as quite suddenly they seem to disappear.  And the quiet discord inside sets in, looking back at all I didn’t accomplish this year, wanting to wring yet one more day out of the summer, then the fall.  And not being the witch-in-training that my dear daughter insists she is, I cannot conjure up more time.  I must give in to the melancholy I feel at the passing of yet another year.  Because the fall, for me, is the ending of the year before.

Yet, the fall then is also the beginning.  Which is the reason I feel it all so intensely–the colors, the smells, the chill of the air, the breeze as it is changing.

Which is why I love days like these.  They are the bridge between the overwhelming, mind-blowing sensations of the autumnal blaze of glory and the sweet, anticipatory feelings of the coming season.

Blessings be.