Fall Into Me

Something weird happens to me with the first flash of fall. I can sense it coming. Even weeks before when Indian Summer is in full force, I can feel the whir of autumn looming expectantly off in the distance. It’s as if I can almost smell it. The chill hasn’t even arrived, yet I know that magic is about to happen.

It’s no secret that fall is absolutely-hands-down-without-question my favorite season. Spring is a very, very far off second. However, fall isn’t just a season for me – it’s a way of life! An I Ching of existence, if you will. It really is the sum of all my being and wisdom. I know you’re thinking this is pretty extreme – I don’t care. I unfalteringly love everything that has to do with autumn and all it can bring, and I won’t apologize for it.

There’s something so beautiful and profound about the colors changing on the trees, with leaves floating to the ground in a delicate fashion. It’s one of the main reasons I wish I lived in New England (well that, and penchant for preppy boys with glasses in peacoats, but that's a story for another time). Leaves do change here in Northern California, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not as dramatic, and seems to mean less. For me, when those branches shed their now amber-colored layers to begin anew, it’s like a life shift. That’s what happens for me at the beginning of this season – a belief that I turn the page to a new chapter of my life and that anything can happen.

I’m not a religious person. Yes, I would shout from the rooftops that I’m Jewish, and often use it as a qualifier to identify myself… but I can solemnly attest that I’m a really horrible Jew. Yet, whenever September rolls around I do believe that I am capable of so much change come the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s as if I use the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement as an excuse all year long to wait to make that leap of change. But it’s not really an excuse; it’s a force that pushes me towards not being able to help it but change.

When the time comes to bounce out of bed and scrounge for that extra blanket, it’s as if I feel a click in the air that I’m about to become something different. That I’m allowed to become what I’ve always wanted to be. It’s a weird phenomenon that I simply cannot explain. Some people believe that they have some sort of cosmic connection to snow, or the sun, or the ocean… I have that with autumn and all that it encompasses.

Everyone is well aware that I love me a cardigan. It didn’t come as a shock when I finally learned to knit. I usually have a hankering for a hot beverage on a cool day. And yes, one of my favorite activities is to curl up inside with said beverage, a blanket I most likely will knit for myself, and a good book (okay fine probably a “How I Met Your Mother” episode). I don’t know if it’s the romanticism of snuggling up inside (with or without somebody else) or if it’s that I love this season so much that I can’t help but revel in it.

Whatever it is about this season, I wholeheartedly know it presents magic to me. I know that it will bring forth the change I so desperately crave. I know that I will get everything I can out of fall. It might not be the season, but it is how I feel. And for that I can’t wait to have my own personal leaves fall to reveal something so beautiful that I can’t help but curl up and embrace it.