Vivacious Fall

Nov 13, 2008 by Ange

I love the fall.

I love the healthy, sweetly decaying smell of fall. I love the driving rain that rattles the leaves from the trees. I love the bold, infinitely variable swaths of colour that dress the trees before they strip themselves naked and black against the mercurial sky.

It rained for a week straight here. Rain pounded through the night and the days were dark and dramatic. My little Portuguese-painted pot of sad succulents has overflown and turned into a miniature swamp. My orange lantern plant has dropped its moldery little lights and looks like a collection of skeletal, withered spears. I cannot see my lawn or flower beds for the golden leaves.

Today it was beautiful. The sunlight stabbed through the trees with a vengeance, burning away the cloudy remains of the week. My whole family squinted at the windows as we carried on our daily activities, like our eyes had forgotten the light. The cold air and the blinding light. Glorious.

I savor these days because I know January and February are coming. I hate January and February. Endless days of gray. No rain, no sun, just gray. It’s like Hades dredges himself up from the underworld and takes a vacation on the Island for those heavy, colourless months.

Fall is like nature’s Mardi Gras.