AUTUMN

I was born in October and it remains my favorite month.

On the cusp of winter, the temperatures cool and humidity drops enough to make the outside a wonderful place to be. The angle of the sun’s rays changes so that the late afternoon light becomes more reddish, and this melds perfectly with the change in leaf colors. Deeply saturated hues in the earth-colored palette begin to glow in ways unseen at any other time of year. Within the late arriving rays of a fall day, near the purple shadows of autumn, it is as if Rembrandt’s magic light has exploded into the larger physical world.

Maybe because we know that winter is soon to be upon us, the fall season contains the sweet ingredient of wistfulness, of the awareness of time slipping quickly by. That heightens the importance of appreciating and enjoying the momentary, the present, the small gifts of an ever-changing reality.