Fall

I think what I miss most is Fall.

Fall was nice. It was… It was cool and breezy, and the leaves turned, and the air smelled like apple cider and rust. Some days it was too warm, but you knew it wouldn’t last. The nights would get crisp again; not cold like winter, when it hurts to breathe in hard outside at night. Cool and sharp. Fall was like a knife you’d use to pare the skin off a Stayman apple, trying to get the whole skin off in one long, thin, red ribbon. You couldn’t do it, though; any more than you could keep Fall in your pocket and take it out to look at in January or July.

Fall was sweaters and corduroy, and wool jackets smelling like mothballs. Soft black leather. Fall was burnt orange and claret, hammered gold, scarecrows made out of Tide bottles. Pumpkins that were never perfect, but always had a flat side caked with dirt, so when you carved it, you put that side in the back. An apple pie – not too sweet – with a crust that crumbled when you touched it, and melted when it passed your lips.

There’s Fall in September, fall at Halloween, and fall at Thanksgiving. Kids going back to school with new backpacks, trick-or-treating in the early dark with leaves blowing around their feet, the aroma of a brined turkey browning in a hot oven at ten in the morning while the parade passes by on TV.

Beef stew and split-pea soup, and a fresh loaf from the bread machine, warm and soft inside; crusty and crackling outside. A Java log in the fireplace and the Eagles on a Sunday afternoon.

Fall was a long drive through nowhere with carpets of color in the distance and over every rise. The white noise of leaves in the wind.

A cold rain, followed by a carpet of colors that faded before morning.