Gratitude Monday: the changes of colors

Today, practically midway through October, I am deeply grateful that we’re finally getting an edge to the morning air. This endless bleeding summer that started somewhere around April is finally waning and Autumn is commencing, even if it is stealing in quietly.

A friend of mine, originally from Chicago although she hasn’t been in a proper fall season since the late 80s, sniffed, “Of course, the leaves won’t turn colors here; they don’t.”

Well, actually, they do—perhaps not the spectacular riot that we had in Virginia, on account of we don’t get the sharp cold that seems to spark the brilliant hues I loved. But they turn scarlet and rust and gold right outside my windows.

Coming from Southern California, it wasn’t until I moved to Korea that I saw leaves actually changing color on the hoof, as it were; before that it was all theoretical. I’ve never lost my sense of wonder and delight at the show of nature, even though I know it’s going to end in a bunch of naked trees for four or five months.

I once was standing at a third-floor window in Morton Hall at William & Mary, watching the last of the leaves being tugged from the branches by a brisk wind. I wondered what students from Hawaii thought when they saw this process—if they were afraid that the trees were dying. Probably not, but it had to be a weird sensation the first time they ever saw it.

So even though Ms. Chicago thinks this isn’t real fall, I say bring it on. I’m very grateful for the changes around me.