“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”  Albert Camus

I love this time of year in Nor-Nor Cal. The 110 degree days slip away slowly, sheepishly sliding into the 90s. The oaks let go of their first fall leaves. The crisp leaves dance through the air before gathering in piles on the ground.  The liquid ambers tinge just slightly on the leaf edge. Reds, oranges, yellows dappled with green. The light changes in the sky. It’s a softer, gentler light that doesn’t demand 7:00 a.m. sunglasses. The geese fly so low overhead I hear the whir of their wings before they make any sound. I look up and notice the phenomenal V-collaboration. I feel I can reach up my hand and touch their soft, powerful wings–and fly.

One of my favorite things is to sit out back on the loungers with my husband Sunday mornings sipping coffee while our adolescent lab runs around peeing on plants and chewing sticks.  This morning we did that. I felt the fall moving in closer and closer. I heard the rooster in the background. I heard the train pulling through town even though it was miles away. Sound travels in the country. Sounds of birds talking amongst themselves, the donkey braying in the distance, the hummingbird pulling nectar from nearby flowers and fluttering its wings so quickly we hear it 50 feet away. The cool morning air felt like a friend I hadn’t visited in way too long.

It’s in this moment I find my connection with the Creator of all things. This lounge chair is my pew. This canopy of oaks under the blue sky where the hawk glides around and around is my chapel. The seasons, especially fall, show the cycles of life so vividly. Such bright colors. It’s a time for such reflection. It’s a time to just sit and soak up the beauty that is this life. Not to rush anywhere or do anything. Just to celebrate “being.”

All my babies were born in the fall. They, like the season itself, are my daily teachers and editors. For that, I am filled with deep appreciation and gratitude. My life is so full because of them and I have evolved with them more than I ever could dream of doing without them. They are the colors of my world. They are the sounds in the distance and in the fore. They are my roots.

They’ll tell me it’s not fall yet because the calendar doesn’t claim the date. But I know better. I know because the signs are all here. My heart is bursting open. I’m falling in love.