Fall Passing

Fall begets emotional change, seeded anew on cooling afternoons, crackling bonfire evenings and primordial mornings.

November turns days cooler, but not yet cold. Mornings, slightly gray and overcast, resemble bedsheets pulled high over head. They billow and deflate, creating a soft, filtered, secret world, unique that it lasts only a brief moment. Under cover of this cocoon, this soothing hide-a-way indulgence, I felt reluctant to face the early hour bracer. Now darker, closer, the sheets have finally melted. Time has once again come to a point of decision.

Looking out my kitchen window, waiting for the tea kettle to whistle, I watched everything outside define and enliven as dawn’s subtle spectrum painted a virgin palette of color across the sky, changing from smooth mauve to a clear yellow. Broad buttresses of sunlight poured from between houses and tree trunks.

Fall was slipping into winter this morning, clouds of breath appeared steadily as I walked to work. Every part of my body felt the cold except my right hand, due to a warm bag of roasted peanuts I had just bought from a street vendor. I broke open the brown bag of peanuts and the warm steam that rose up carried a salty aroma that invited fond childhood memories fishing on the levy with my grandfather. Breaking open the ridged peanut shells brought warm treasures to keep my mind off November’s passing.