Though it be madness, yet there is method in it!: The Annual "I Love Fall" Post

All my life, I thought that September 21st marked the first day of fall. My world was rocked this morning when the local news told me I was wrong. Fall or autumn (as my more-pretentious friends would say) officially begins tomorrow, September 22nd at 5:18pm. This begs the question, "How much do I trust the local news?" But that's beside the point. All technicalities aside, fall is near. According to the calendar at least.

No one calls me Webster (or Merriam for that matter), but I have a very specific definition for fall/autumn. Fall is what you feel when you walk outside in the morning and the air is crisp enough that, at first, you think it's cold, but then you realize it's just awesome. You can breathe. You don't immediately break out into a sweat from simply standing outside. The leaves have started to change from their lively green color to warmer, though just as vibrant, shades of yellow, orange, and red. You can pack up the shorts and get out the jeans. Dinners transition from the grilled meals of the hot weather to the oven-baked goodness of cold weather. Scents of pumpkin, apple, and cinnamon fill the air. Turkey is on the horizon. Buzz of Halloween costumes picks up fervor. Hay rides ensue. It becomes socially acceptable to drink coffee, hot tea, hot chocolate, and hot apple cider any time of day.

Now that I live in Georgia, some of these things have changed, but this will always be my definition of fall. Always. Living in Georgia presents fall in a different way, so I'm always left feeling a little gypped when I'm still wearing shorts in November, the amazing leaf-change doesn't quite happen, and I still sweat from simply standing outside. The positive is that I get to wear sandals just about year-round. And I now know the joys of a bag of hot boiled peanuts. So, there's that.

(I would be remissed if I didn't thank God for springtime in the South. It's beauty does help to take the sting of a lacking fall away...some.)

I'm not sure if disdain for heat is genetic, environmental, or conditioned. At any rate, Ben is not a fan of Georgia summers. I know only a handful of people who actually *like* this brand of heat. (So that whole myth about people from the South "liking" the heat...not true.) Needless to say, Ben was excited to find out that fall was on the horizon. This morning I asked him if he knew what today was (he didn't), so I told him it was the last day of summer. He looked back and me with a twinkle in his eye and said, "Does this mean it'll be cooler tomorrow?"