Falling for the First Time

I have an excuse for not posting in such a terribly long time: I have fallen in love.

Yes, my dear readers, it was inevitable. With the sweet sun on my skin and the golden hue surrounding me I fell like a middle school girl. And like all great relationships, it's over practically before it started.

For the first time in my life I fell in love with Fall. Although I've always claimed this my favorite season I was never truly aware of how magical it could be. I've spent every other Autumn in a classroom, sucking in the crisp air and drinking the image of cascading leaves as I ran between classes. The Man was robbing me and I didn't event know it; I was experiencing Fall not in its true glory but during my snatches of time between class, meetings, and work. And of course there was last Fall, which I barely remember, because I was much too busy worrying, calculating, and feeling quite hungry and miserable.

Have you ever wanted to really experience the beauty that is Fall? If so, I offer a simple solution: graduate from college and do not commit to a typical, office-centered job. Go to interviews, but ensure that they are at every compass point of the city and take the scenic route there. Sign up as a gardener on the weekends. Run outside in every open-space possible. In fact, find a single trail to frequent at periodic intervals so that you can monitor the world as it navigates the majesty of the season.

If you do this, you will fall for Fall.

With the first freeze and the first snow well behind us, Fall is now merging with Winter. I am so grateful for having lived this past season as I have. With little true experience I still assert that this was a particularly glorious season. Every morning the world emerged slowly, rolling around in its bed of leaves as the sun gently warmed and matured it. Harvests were fruitful; even the small vegetable gardens that I worked in yielded massive, juicy tomatoes and zucchinis feet in length. Their owners offered the booty to me and I ate them on the spot, letting the tomato juice trace sweet lines through the dirt on my chin. I spent an entire day making pumpkin pie with a friend- we even picked the pumpkin from the patch and I missed my Eating Disorders Anonymous group to stay and chow on a second piece (I thought that was sufficiently recovery-focused). Most mornings I woke up early enough to watch the sun rise and was outside to see the sun set. I spent many days buried knee-deep in flowers, unperturbed by discomfort because the temperature was somehow always just right.

Most people lament the fact that Fall turns into Winter; it's always too fast, they say. I lack any identification with that sentiment this year. Fall developed, ran its course, and is now complete. It was sweet and kind, evidence of the natural rate of things. It provided us with gifts and and we were thankful for them. Fall knew that the end would come; it has come every year past and will come every year in the future. It looked forward to that changing point but remained enveloped in the moment, knowing that living a day worried about tomorrow only deteriorated that day itself. The grace with which Fall now takes its leave is possible only because of the grace with which it sensationalized every day of its existence.

I remember this time last year. I was beginning to get cold; people with eating disorders often lose the ability to regulate their body temperatures and Fall was a signal that I would spend the next few months pretending like the cold wasn't threatening to permanently seep into my bones. I didn't celebrate Halloween and I spent a large portion of Thanksgiving trying to walk off my meal. I was so involved in my Blackberry that I hardly every looked into the sky when outside. And I hated Fall for moving so fast, for signalling it's end by simply choosing to start. I didn't want Fall to change and yet I knew that I couldn't be happy in it.

For the past month or so, Fall has been one of my greatest teachers. It has taught me to embrace the moment and rejoice in the fruits of my own labor. It has reminded me to be bright and colorful, to keep an extra jacket on hand in case the wind blows, and that the dropping of leaves is a natural part of the life-cycle. It has taught me to embrace the process of change as its own entity, separate from that which beget it and that which will derive of it. It reminded me of how much I love to be in the open sun. It kept me in touch with my body, eating so that I could spend long days doing yard work. And it did all of this is the most clever and forgiving ways.

I want to live my life like Fall. I want to be in a continuous state of harvesting that which is nourishing and dropping that which no longer serves a purpose. I want to explore all of my colors. I want to embrace change not as a goal but as an endeavor within itself. I want to be grateful for my past and move toward my future by utilizing the moment at hand. I want to be full, healthy, and fun.

You can call me Autumn. I'm in love.