Gorgeous autumn

I love autumn. And I feel so fortunate to live in a place that rewards us with brilliant colors in the fall.



In the part of Texas I grew up in, autumn was the time that leaves just went brown and fell off the trees. It didn't change the color of the landscape much, because it was already pretty brown from the scorching summers.

In school, however, we celebrated fall as if we were in the heart of New England. We drew pictures with bright red, orange, and gold leaves, and we made our own fall leaves out of colored construction paper--bright reds, oranges, and yellows. As an adult, I was known to make wreaths out of craft-store "silk" autumn leaves, just to have a hint of that eastern color.

Now that I've moved to a place where the leaves actually do change colors, it amazes me to think how eastern-centric we were in Texas. We not only mimicked the east with our fall colors, we did the same thing in winter--making snow scenes out of paper and glitter and glue. We only had snow once every few years--and never enough to warrant snow boots--and yet, all the pictures we learned to draw in wintertime had to have snow in it. Why didn't we celebrate the seasons the way they actually were?

But anyway, now I'm in the northeast and loving the colors. The trees started changing here quite early--at the very beginning of September--but we're still just approaching the peak of color. In the Boston area, the best color was always found the week of Columbus Day, but I'd always heard that this part of upstate New York was a little earlier than Boston. But here it is, just a few days from Columbus Day, and we still have a long way to go.

That's fine with me. I love the autumn and wish it could last a little longer. There are a lot of cold and grey days to follow, so I want to keep the memory of these brilliant colors as long as I can....