I haven’t given the fall season enough credit.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s been my favorite season throughout most of my adult life.
It’s a preference that dates to when I used to teach high school, and fall marked the beginning of the school year. As such, it came to symbolize a blank slate and fresh start, a time when every student could still get an A, every lesson could still be a success, everybody could still get along.
Even now, I am captivated by the possibilities and maybes it offers.
Maybe my football team of choice will end up in the national championship. Maybe warmly hued knickknacks will turn my home into a cozy haven where everyone sits in armchairs and reads “The Canterbury Tales.” Maybe the falling leaves and cool grass will entice my family to throw footballs on the lawn. Maybe the seasonal spiced mocha will taste as tantalizing as it looks on Instagram. Heck, maybe I’ll even take a day trip to an orchard and pick apples.
But my appreciation for the season has, to date, mostly rested on the rose-colored, head-in-the-clouds optimism it offered, the kind that is easy to have before time proves you wrong – before my team loses the championship, my family refuses to read or spend more than five minutes outside, the mocha triggers digestive problems, or I realize I don’t like apples.
The older I get, however, the more I admire something even more special about fall. And it’s not the cooling temperatures (though those are welcome).
What is truly remarkable about the fall season is it keeps coming back.
Yes, it lures me in with its possibilities, but it’s also got a kind of fighting spirit that continues to do so even after other seasons – after life – have chipped away at it.
It’s a tricky thing to do, if you ask me.
After all, for many of us, one of the greatest obstacles to maintaining our own spirit of possibilities and freshness is actual experience. We might lose the job we expected to be in forever. We might have our dreams destroyed. We might watch a loved one make drastic mistakes. We might have important relationships fall apart. We might find our good health deteriorates.
When such realities rear their ugly heads and interrupt our great expectations or sense of “what if,” it’s easy to think “why bother?” and stop having such expectations. It’s even easier to stop smiling, grow jaded and stop dreaming altogether.
That’s why I find fall so inspiring.
In many ways, it is a good-news season that doesn’t let disappointments or realities overshadow what it offers in the present or promises in the future. It knows what last year held – the good and the bad – but it shows up again and again with its crisp air and promises … and new maybes.
Maybe another job will prove more suitable or fulfilling. Maybe the destroyed dream needs to evolve into another. Maybe the loved one will find their way. Maybe the broken relationship will heal. Maybe we’ll do as much as we can despite our ailments. And maybe all our realities will make us a little smarter, wiser and stronger so we’ll be ready to start all over again.
Yes, fall deserves more credit. I even think we could all be more like it. In fact, if you see me with a smile on my face when there’s nothing much to smile about, it’s not because I’m hiding behind rose-colored glasses. It’s because I’ve put on my fall-colored ones.
