Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night. ~ Hal Borland

I Love the Fall

Fall has always been my favorite season. I don’t like the heat and so Summer, while it certainly has lots to like particularly around getting in the water, heat, particularly with humidity truly makes me miserable. I grew up in the Northeast, so humidity was part of summer, as were the damn bugs, flies and midges during the day, mosquitoes as the sun goes down, not a fan. One of the reasons I have so loved living in the dry environs of the West Coast is the lack of bugs. It’s not that there aren’t any, but there are a lot fewer, and particularly during my time in the desert, there were almost none.

Fall on the other hand meant that the cool weather cut down on the number of bugs. Even when there are hot days in the fall, the nights cool off significantly. The leaves begin to change colors lighting up the forest, and even the crackle of dry leaves on the ground as you walk makes me happy. Falling leaves have a special place in my heart. I love catching falling leaves, one of my favorite memories as a child was a game I would play in elementary school at lunchtime in the fall. There was a massive old elm tree in the center of our school’s playground. A side note, my sister taught at that school and years ago I went to visit and realized they’d cut the tree down, I was very sad. At lunchtime after eating, I would go out to the playground, and instead of jumping into the daily kickball game I would catch leaves. If you’ve never done it, it’s amazing. Leaves fall in absolutely no rational way, trying to catch them, in the breeze, when you’re a competitive little shit like I was, takes total focus. I would get completely lost, running, spinning even falling down as I tracked a leaf. And then I would do it again and again and again until the bell rang and I had to go back to class. This I would repeat every day from the start of leaf fall until that big old tree was devoid of leaves. It was a simple thing but I loved it, loved getting lost in it, the only time I get that way at this point in life is writing or taking photos.

Fall was also the time of year to be in the woods. It was cooler, no bugs, fewer snakes, with the leaves dropping it was easier to spot wildlife. As a kid, fall meant hiking and hunting and it was absolutely the time of year I spent the most time in the woods. Camping in the fall is amazing, after a long day of hiking, unlike in the Summer, you get a nice cool night to sleep in, I absolutely love it.

Of course you substitute when your world changes, my substitution on the West Coast has been desert camping in the winter. It’s a close approximation to the falls of the North East, nice sunny days and cool amazing nights. In the Fall, or in the desert Winters, you get dry nights which means no clouds and bright clear stars when you get into places with dark skies.

The other thing that Fall often brings is rain. I have a weird relationship with rain. I love rain, the experience of petrichor, the smell of the forest when it rains after a warm dry spell. To me that is the smell of life, warmth and safety. I also love thunderstorms, big thundering rains and downpours, the sound of rain pounding on a plastic or tin roof is one of the most soothing sounds I can imagine. But how I hate cold rain, and my time on the Appalachian Trail solidified that. On the trail there is a saying, embrace the suck. It means accept and even engage and love the horrid conditions, because a lot of the time will be like that. Until you can get past the physical discomforts, you really can’t get the gifts that are all around you while hiking the trail.

So, while this nostalgic post was really just me wallowing in a time of year I really love, the message and the lesson tonight is embrace the suck. We all have shit in our lives almost all of the time, our jobs, bills, obligations and responsibilities. We live in a complex, frustrating and disappointing world. At some level however, you have to find some level of peace and acceptance with the sucky parts of our lives, because until we do, we can;t see the gifts all around us and find the happiness we deserve. So embrace the suck my friends and have happier days. ~ Rev Kane