Fall is time to regroup and recharge

Of all the seasons, I love autumn the most.

Maybe it’s in my blood – I was born in the fall – but I love everything about this time of year. I love the way the sun shines low and golden across the sky. I love the colors of the leaves and the way they drift so slowly down to the sidewalk and the way they sound when I walk through them.

I like the tangy smell of wood smoke in the air and the sweet taste of apples and pears; cinnamon and vanilla. I like the way a cup of hot coffee feels when I wrap my hands around it and bring it close to my lips.

But this is also the season that makes me feel restless and a little anxious for the future. Even when I thought I was content and satisfied.

I want something I can’t name or define. I feel the urge to work and plan and prepare. At home I want to paint walls and move furniture and keep at it until I’ve made a nest; a place that is warm and comfortable; a place that will shelter me from the winter winds.

I turn into a cave painter in cable-knit sweaters and thick woolly socks, pulled by instinct to hunt and gather. Well, instinct and a mailbox full of Pottery Barn catalogs and glossy shelter magazines.

I want a cozy throw on the sofa and a lamp beside the chair. I want my favorite old books, and a stack of new books from the bookstore, on the table by my bed. I want hot tea, hearty soup and a scarf around my neck. I want to curl inward. I want to think and remember and look forward. I want to make plans for the future.

I’m not alone. I’ve noticed that my friends are feeling the need to change things, to get ready for winter. One is shopping for heavy curtains to draw across the big windows in her living room. Another just bought flannel sheets for the bed.

But our conversations also turn toward what we want to accomplish, what we want to leave behind.

Winter, with its gray skies and dirty slush on the sidewalk, wears on us until we’re desperate for spring. And when that season arrives we’re so crazy with relief we don’t slow down all summer. We work hard at relaxing. We picnic on the green grass, swim in the warm water and luxuriate in the warm sunshine. We play and play and play until, before we know it, it’s autumn again. We slow down. We get a little restless. We grow thoughtful..

Fall is when nature slows down, too. And everything shows its true color. A tree, tall and green in the summer, slowly changes into a thing of real beauty; a canopy of crimson, gold and terra cotta leaves. Children aren’t the only ones who stop and pick up a perfect maple leaf, twirling it by the stem, admiring it front and back before letting it fall to the ground.

There is something about this season that marks time for us and makes us realize how many days, and weeks, and months have slipped through our fingers, moments that were squandered and unappreciated even though this time last year we promised – we promised – not to let it happen again.

Fall pulls us in. We slow down and start over. And we promise to make every day count.

At least until summer comes again.