I Hope You Have a Nice Trip, See You Next Fall...

Autumn is hard. For a girl who prides herself on steeliness it is difficult, having to smell, feel, hear, taste a season. Hard because it means something. Fall has always been that time for me. Apples never taste so crisp, so tart at any other time of the year. Leaves crunching beneath the feet. The air smells different. Is it because I share a hometown with Ray Bradbury and all his Hallowe'en carnival madness? If that was so, I may as well live on Mars... and yet... It makes having to attend municipal events based on this very nostalgia that much more bizarre.

I love the fall because it truly is the time that I feel emotions most deeply. Maybe I should fear it for the same reasons, and yet I do not (or maybe just a hair). I've always loved the changing of the colors of the leaves, the briskness in the air, and the sudden impulse to pull a jacket towards oneself. I love the artistry of a hand crafted caramel apple and the silliness of a child's Halloween costume. I've never felt anything as deeply as I've felt "FALL" and oddly enough it's hard to admit that it's my true vice, more than the call of a fine wine, exquisite sex, or a the artistry of a gourmet meal. I'd rather have my ear screamed in by the teenaged employees of Great America's Fright Fest than any other siren song. This is the modern times' Dust Witch.

Bittersweet is the only word that can truly be used to describe this feeling and yet, it can never fully describe the pounding in my heart and ears, the chill on my skin, the freshness in my nose, the crisp taste on my tongue, and the mist in my eyes.

The sound of a foot crashing through a pile of crimson and gold leaves, the taste of cheap chocolate on the tongue, the impressions and tightness of the band of a cheap drugstore mask; These are all the marks of the season, the intonations of both the newness of the school year with it's pop culture folders and newly sharpened pencils, and the the dying of a season, the smell of mud and leaves and life returning to the earth for another turn.

The stakes always feel higher for me at this time of year, perhaps because everything is felt with that much more intensity.