There have been more than enough online articles and blog posts that talk about fall. I feel absolutely no need to express my love for the season because a lot of people have already done so. We’ve written about fall sincerely and we’ve written about it sarcastically. We want to squeeze every last piece out of fall that we can.
Perhaps this is because fall is in itself so short and its days so fleeting. The days are starting to get shorter, so there are fewer hours to drink them in. Imagine that one, perfect fall day. The day where the temperature is at that sweet spot between chilly and warm, where that certain bite to the air tickles the skin but doesn’t tear at it, where the wind picks up enough to allow the leaves to flow through the air without attacking everybody who walks past. That day feels like one in a million, so much so that it often feels more like an hour than a day.
If we blink, the air suddenly drops ten degrees or the clouds come out or the breeze begins to bite at our faces. We feel compelled to take advantage of those perfect fall days. We want to snap pictures of the red and orange leaves and post them on our social media accounts because we want everybody to know that we have experienced beauty in this world and that they should be jealous that they haven’t seen it too.
It doesn’t just stop at pictures of our surroundings. We need to do things while we experience this perfect weather, while our hunter green and burgundy sweaters haven’t faded from repeated cycles through the laundry machines and our stylish boots remain un-scuffed from the snow-dirt mix on the street.
If summer is the season of adventure, of extended vacations to faraway places and life changing experiences, then fall is the season of small getaways to cute local farms and that apple orchard only a few blocks down the road. We want to go to pumpkin patches. We want to taste homemade cider. We want to go on hayrides. We are all too aware of the looming winter season coming up, which will bury our cars and thus our getaway devices in the endless snow, which will hurt our faces so much that even stepping out of the house will feel like a battle against all of Earth’s elements. We will spend a good three or four months trapped, so we feel the necessity of making every last moment of the gorgeous fall weather count.
When we don’t do any of it, when we spend the greater amount of the fall season perusing Instagram and Pinterest looking at pictures of other people having fun instead of experiencing everything that fall has to offer, we will feel that we have failed. Whatever greater power of nature that we believe in has provided with us this unbelievably picturesque landscape, this unbelievably perfect weather, and we have done nothing to show our appreciation for it—then we’ve failed fall. So get out there and enjoy the weather. It’s really one in a million.
Image credits: Pinterest