A Sneak Peak at Autumn and My Fondness for This Time of the Year

Tonight I stepped outside to take out the trash. A simple, oh so very simple act that I tend to do whenever my boyfriend is working nights.

This time, it felt different. There was no noise, even with the 405 freeway roaring past my house like 10 lanes of frothing river. No, I am use to those diesel trucks and expensive sports car. I can hear above them, below them, beyond them.

I stood still, my eyes following the shadows below my second story doorstep. Soft spot lights cast demonic shapes along the driveway. I tried to trance them all in my mind, but the night swallowed their edges and left me with no start or finish. There were so many seconds of stillness, of quiet, that I felt it echoing in my mind.

That smell. What is it? Something about the night air caught in my lungs. It chilled my skin, and wrapped its cool arms around me like a Fall embrace.

Ah, that's it, I realized. This is Fall air.

Imagine my curiosity as I stood there, bathing in the changing seasons. Over the past week, heat had suffocated Californians and the prospect of Autumn was hardly on my mind.

Yet this is in fact the crispness, the chill, the fresh, cold smell of new, autumn weather. I remember it fondly; growing up in Maine was a one way ticket to hay rides in October and apple picking in early November.

I stood there a moment longer, trash bag casually dropped by my side in neglect, and remembered pumpkin pie, crunching leaves, and the whipping winds outside my window. The comfort I felt snuggled in my warm, unnecessarily large bed. I closed my eyes and thought of extra sweaters, the scratchy kind that your mother always made you wear. I could almost feel the cold metal of the nutcracker in my hand, and the thick taste of the season's first glass of egg-nog. This cold night air use to be the first sign of my favorite time of the year. It feels new, unused and full of possibilities. We leave the humid summer behind and start fresh.