Delicious autumn

Since we moved to Georgia, I've been wondering when autumn would come. A week ago, I let the dog out early in the morning, and there it was--the first hint. The breeze was cool, the humidity gone. And there was that feeling. Then the heat quickly rose with the sun and every day since has been hot and my thoughts of fall have been pushed aside with other distant hopes for the future as I've walked the dog and prepared for classes and eaten things and rested my head and distracted myself, because we must keep living while we're longing.

But then this morning, I met the chilly breeze again as if it had always been there but just around the corner. And I was immediately happy. I was healed momentarily of all that has troubled me lately. Everything will be okay, the wind told me. Everything will come back around and turn out how it should.

There are still hot days to come. Long hot days. It'll be at least a month before I can wear long-sleeved t-shirts, before Jonathan starts baking bread again and the pecans are done enough to taste, before I can think about jack-o'-lanterns and all the pretty elven dresses hiding in the guest room closet, before visits home and cranberry sauce and breathtaking mountain drives. But I will wait patiently. Let it ease in. Let it happen just when it's meant to. And then, let it last as long as it can.

~*~

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird

I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

~ George Eliot