Monday, September 6, 2010

Fall Is Flirting With Me

I'm hoping that God decides to smash the east coast with another weak hurricane so we can have some more of this beautiful, breezy weather up here in Ohio...

Labor day weekend has been beautiful to me. Fall is my favorite season, and this weekend was all about hinting at its inevitable arrival. There was a slight chill. The leaves on the trails that my family and I hiked were just a little crisp, and the wind was getting worked up; a little enthusiastic, just as I like it. I burned a CD full of Nick Drake songs.

If you ask me, the best weather is the kind where you're not sure whether or not it's cold enough to wear a jacket for whatever events you may have planned. You think about it. You open up your closet and look for your favorite light jacket. You take it out, maybe even try it on. Eventually you decide to pass, and set out without it. When you're out and about (wherever you are), you say to yourself or whoever is with you: 'I probably should have brought my jacket!'

That's the best weather, if you ask me.

So, the kids start school tomorrow. It was a good summer. Life makes sense to me right now, although it doesn't always. I've been thinking about learning French, in the hopes that in about a year or so I'll be fluent enough to take my family on a vacation to Paris and at least be able to talk to the locals. When I travel, I don't like to go to the tourist spots. I like to find some random place and just exist. We usually choose some random macguffin for our vacation destinations. On our first trip to Chicago, our only item on the agenda was to see the Man Eater's of Tsavo. Our only goal the first time we went to New York was to see if those hot dogs were as good as we heard they were (they're better in Chicago). Next year we're going to Rhode Island to see where H.P. Lovecraft is buried. After that, we'll just hang out. Hanging out in a new city is always the best.

So, that's all. Fall's on the way, and it makes me almost manic with enthusiasm for life. I want to create in Fall. Poetry makes more sense in the Autumn than it does at any other time of year. In the Fall, I want to visit old graveyards and listen to folk music. I want to catch acorns with my kids, and get lost walking in the woods. I want to take hayrides, eat toasted almonds and run around in corn mazes. I want to stay up too late by a big bonfire, fall asleep in my lawn chair and smell smoky--like I just stepped out of Hell--the next morning.

When all of the leaves are dying, I feel most alive.

5 comments:

  1. I hear you Spencer, I love the fall. To me it's a breath of fresh air. And it is got to be the most beautiful time of year.

    The leafs are just starting to change in Maine.

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  2. Goodbye summer--and good riddance!! Spring and Fall are what its all about. Like that Nick Drake--hadn't heard him before.

    And by the way, NYC's all about the pizza. The hot dogs? Not so much. Enjoy the fall!

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  3. Like Brother willie I too reside in the great state of maine. I live is the small costal town of Camden.
    It it is God's country this time of year. You can feel the promise of winter in the each night's dusk and you savor each warm sunny day as they grow increasingly shorter inching toward that long winter ahead.
    If your a child it is all moving forward. New grade, new friends. But as you get a little older you sit and marvel at how quikly the summer has passed and how you want to hold on to each little moment a little tighter.

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  4. Very poetic E Ape,I agree with your view. And I live around the corner from you in Rockport. We are neighbors, neighbor.

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  5. All the clever ones group at the coast.

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