Meandering

Fall is my favorite time of year. The trees aflame with fall foliage, crimson, gold, yellow, purple. Chilly mornings that portend the coming winter and curling up on the couch with a cup of hot tea and a good book or cuddling next to Hubby at night, the curve of my body fitting neatly, snugly in to the curve of his as we share warmth, breath and space beneath riotous quilts. The smell of rich earth turned beneath plow blades, the aroma of dry, dusty cornhusks fed through the combine and the acrid, smoky scent of piles of summertime brush turned to ashes. Coyotes yip-yapping at each other as they prepare their dens for the winter months, fattening themselves on mice fleeing empty, harvested fields and a growing abundance of roadkill.

Apple pies in the oven, the warm, buttery, sweet cinnamon smell filling the house and warming the heart. Apples piled in weathered wooden bushel boxes, sitting in the orchard waiting to become apple cider, caramel apples, apple betty, the sweetness of their ripened flesh filling the air. Halloween and blazing bonfires, clouds of warm breath hanging in the chilled night, arms covered with thinning, soft flannel, warm mead or red wine sweet on my lips beneath the bright, crisp glow of a full moon.

Time to work on my embroidery, catch up on my scrapbooking, read books until my eyes ache and my head feels like bursting with so many images. Sipping hot, creamy, sweet coffee on the deck while watching the sun glow orange on the eastern horizon, burning chilled dew from dying petals, listening to the birds call to each other from a palette of treetops as a vee of geese fly high overhead against a brightening sky, their honking faint, distant. This is my time. The contemplative, calm moments before the children rise to greet the day and send their energy, their enthusiasm reeling into my heart and jigging lightly along my soul.