Fall

It's fall outside.  It's finally here.  I've never been more thrilled about the changing season.  Last year I was in Anguilla, British West Indies and had been there all year long living in one big season.  Summer.  I'm not complaining about living in "paradise"... but, there is something about that first sniff of East Coast fall air that can't be replaced.  When the brisk rustling of tree branches shake their leaves and when college anthems hail something happens inside me that makes me excited and cozy all at the same time.  It feels balanced.

 It is a time full of possibility and renewal.  I take deep breaths in the fall.  I get excited about the upcoming holidays and all the gathering of friends and family whether it be for football games on Saturday or Thanksgiving food comas in November.  I get to think in layers in the fall.  I can wear three shirts at once and when I walk out the door in the morning I never know which layer will be showing when I get home!  Appreciation of the outdoors is at an all time high.  Winter hibernation is just around the corner and soon we'll all be indoors deciding what our new selves will be like next year after we get through living to the max this fall!

Through all this excitement I had a downer... a real doozey of a downer.  I saw a butterfly on the ground and I picked it up.  He was batting his wings but was weak and so instead of throwing him back on the pavement, I just held him.  I literally sat and held this butterfly until he died.  And that was sad and made me think of the fall a bit differently.  As much of a necessity as it is to have a cycle of life and a cycle of seasons, it still isn't easy to see things dwindle down and go away.  Butterflies don't flutter, whip-poor-wills don't call, and flowers say no thanks, too cold.

 My butterfly had a proper burial.  We had a bonding moment and I couldn't discard him with no thought.  It made me think of that Death Cab for Cutie song, What Sarah Said.  "Love is watching someone die."  So I now loved my little butterfly and decided to put him to rest in my favorite plant, Promitto (meaning to surrender in Latin).  I thought it was somewhat poetic and if I were a butterfly I would like it.

So, it turns out that some of my deep breaths of fall are in fact sighs of sadness.  Facing life for what it is, the good and the bad, the life and the death... at least there's still football!