Confession: My Secret Love Affair With Autumn

Today I took a walk to clear my head.  The sun was shining, the air was crisp but warm and a slight breeze was blowing.  In my mind, it is a perfect day.  Just to be clear though, I still had work to do, and stresses, and worries, and chores to do throughout the day.  I even abused the use of the comma in my writing (see previous sentence).  My mind was so bogged down with things that I felt restless.  So how can this be a perfect day, you ask?  Well perhaps I should clarify a few things and it might start making some sense.

The first thing I should emphasize is that, having all these menial, trivial and sometimes frustrating tasks to do hardly add up to perfection.  They have a habit of getting in the way and can be distracting to someone like me who often gets inside his own head.  It’s not that they aren’t important generally – it’s more that they can get in the way of what is important to YOU.  This brings me to today….

Before leaving for my walk, I had the sudden impulse to bring my camera with me.  This camera is an old friend that I haven’t been spending all that much time with lately – I apologized profusely to him and thanked him for having enough battery power left for our foray this afternoon.  While relatively new when you count the years I’ve owned it, in a technological sense it is probably antiquated so I hope you understand when I call him “old.” Anyway, I brought him along, leaving all the stuff on my mind at home.  That’s when I ran in to her.

Her name is autumn.  She has golden hair and a dry wit.  She likes to tease me a bit by gently blowing in my ear.  As we greet each other, I sit in the grass, put my bags down, bring my camera out and begin to photograph her.  She moves and I watch.  She whispers and I listen.  I get caught in her dance and drawn in to something I had forgotten her capable of.  Before I know it, an hour has gone by.  I look around me and realize that I am surrounded by her.  The leaves on the ground rustle as the breeze gently blows.  The air smells subtly of wood smoke and fallen foliage.  The sun is bright and the sky is blue.  My busy and sometimes uncooperative mind is put at ease for the first time in a while.

Autumn, or fall as she is commonly known, is my favourite season.  I think fall can be unfairly treated as a time of year in which leaves and plant life are in a dying or dead state and herald the coming of winter.   However, I see things much differently.  The leaves change to more intense colours than they have in their entire lifespan.  When they fall to the ground, they make music in the wind.  In groups, they tumble, they dance and they play.  They are not dead.  They have matured and come into their own.

Autumn has once again had a cleansing effect on my mind and spirit.  We’ve enjoyed each other’s company for one magical afternoon and my heart quickens at the memory.  I return home with my camera to the things I left behind, but I see them now in a different light.  I will still work, do chores, have stresses, have worries, and abuse the comma, but I will not forget the things today that made me smile.  These are truly important.

I have another date with my camera tomorrow.  When we go out, maybe I will see “her” again.

Perfect.