Reflecting

I'm not sure what to write about tonight, and I'm not sure where it will go, but I felt like it was something I should do.

I know I've mentioned it before, and to anyone in the North (and maybe the South, though I can't say with absolute certainty) it's fairly obvious to those whose rods and cones are working that it's fall. Things are turning copper, orange, yellow and red before they die away into the whites, grays and browns of winter.   It's natural, and it's beautiful.

For me, it's a time I can't help but look back.  Sometimes I find I do so fondly, but it hasn't really been that way recently.  I enjoy the amazing colors and the bite in the air, and I enjoy entertaining thoughts of sweaters and chili and cuddling up under blankets.  As wonderful as all that color is though, it's a sign, and an ending.  The light's fading and the leaves aren't holding on anymore.

It's just a going dormant and the spring will bring all the signs of life back.  I sometimes feel like I want to go dormant in certain arenas though.  Here's the part where there'd be some grand analogy involving the brightest leaves being the first to fall.

I guess the dark coming earlier has me worried when I'll see the light again.  The changes in weather are matching the way I feel like I'm safe to open my heart one day and another I need to bury it in the floorboards.  And here's the things, I like extremes.  I like raging fires and crashing waves and violent lightning and thunder...most of the time.   But I don't need that now. I need pastoral.  Neat little bundles of hay in a row that makes sense in a little cornfield somewhere where everything is in a row.   It's not normal for me to want that but I do.  I want to feel safe, and I want to feel cared for.  I don't want to look out the window every day and have no idea what it's going to feel like when I step outside, because I've been trying to adapt to the changing weather for too long and I need to rest.

What I want is fall.  Blankets and rainy nights and the distant sounds of high school football games and marching bands.   What I want is to wrap up in a comfortable sweater and know that it'll be okay when I step outside.

I hope I find that feeling soon, and I start to look at fall as the sun catching the world on fire again. I hope when I do it's contagious.