Fall-ing In Love
I love Fall.
I can feel it coming, though here on the Chesapeake Bay, Summer is far from over. The days are still hot and sticky. Most evenings, wild thunderstorms generated by all the land-heat push out to sea and crash over the boat. The storms are like grand temper tantrums staged by Mother Nature herself: rumbling thunder flaring to a wild pitch of rain, wind and lightning, then over quickly, leaving calm. The waters are filled with jellyfish galore—a product of the higher salinity this time of year—all the way to the northern end of the Bay. Still, Fall is on its way.
The first harbinger is all the “back-to-school” sales. Advertisements for everything from Notebook computers to notebook paper everywhere you look. Pencils, erasures, backpacks, sweaters: all necessities of the new school year. Though I am long out of school, it makes me want to go out and buy shoes; a new pair to celebrate the new year. Because, for me, Fall is—and always has been—the start of the New Year.
Soon the weather will match my mood. The air will lose this humidity and become crisp. The skies will be a crystal blue, all haze swept away in the northerly winds. Leaves will turn brilliant colors and slowly fall to the ground to be shuffled under our feet and raked into piles. The season I love the most will truly arrive and—here in the mid-Atlantic—linger and laze its way into Winter.
So, I’m sending you all a bouquet of No. 2 pencils, to celebrate Fall. I hope you enjoy their heady aroma of new beginnings. Perhaps they will inspire you to sharpen one, pull out that new notebook, open the cover and write a few words. As for me, I think I’ll go look at shoes.
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