How unsurprising that my favorite season speaks of so many of my favorite things. . . It is autumn. Now is the season for hats and scarves and sweaters and faux-fur and lengthy novels and poetry and twinkle lights, brisk breezes, Harry Potter and hot tea and knitting, Martha Stewart, China-red doors, and the beginnings of home-made Christmas presents.
The air is a mix of forth-coming spices, and baked goods, and caramel, and falling leaves. It is the season for cinnamon brooms, coats and capes flapping in the breeze, outdoor dancing on moon-lit nights, coffee under the stars, candles, many candles, unending candles, the Chronicles of Narnia.
It is a season for reunion and re-creation and reflection and resolution, self-discovery, and selflessness; a season of looking back over all that has come to be (the harvest) and all that must now pass away, be let go of, like the leaves who give way, knowing their time has passed. And a season of new beginnings.
A season to buy a very large bouquet of hydrangeas just because, for rolling in the grass with a child, when yard work seems less like a chore and more like an act of worship, when Friday night art gallery openings seem the only sensible thing to do, a season for evening opera and ballet and theatre, dried flowers, falling leaves, the contrasting beauty of the magic of the changing leaves and the mystic tragedy of decay.
It is the days for offerings, acts of sacred devotion, for afternoon cleaning, for returning to one�s roots, for cross-country road trips, for writing and journaling, for warm blankets and quilts and feathered pillows, for the song of the cello and viola and classical guitar, for pursuing dreams forgotten or ignored, for love and isolation, social visits and welcome gifts, large colorful buttons, pumpkins, flowing skirts, lace up boots, slumber parties, scones and pies and waffles. These are the days for Starbucks (these days, aren't all days the days for Starbucks?), the gone but not forgotten Harvest Blend 2004, Cafe Verona, of Etheopia Sidamo, or perhaps a hot chai, brown paper packages tied up with string, hand-written letters, stationary, manuscripts, whispering to the trees, and listening when they whisper back, indoor cats, stone tables, stripes, corduroy, the season to put on a play, for grandfather clocks and secret passageways, for age and change and consistency, for public literature readings and culture, for great busy-ness and the precious grand moments of meditation in the midst, for parks and hikes and tai chi on the grass, for walking, for constellations, for gold-leaf, for inviting strangers to participate, for early frost, for overstuffed couches and chases with elaborate wooden frames, for lounging, and laughing, for thinking alone, and sitting together in silence for hours at a time, warmed by each other�s company.
For gatherings of divine intent, hand to hand and heart to heart. For revelation and truth and magic and God. . .
The list may go on forever, but this is autumn, to be savored, to be cherished. Reflect on what autumn is to you; do not let the season brush by, make the most of it.
