Fall joys... who knew?
I have never been a big fan of Fall, except for when I was school aged and loved getting a new outfit. I always dreamed of wearing beautiful wool plaid skirts, fuzzy sweaters and loafers to school. Except, I live in California, so wearing wool anything is not something that we do alot. And I think the last time I wore loafers really was in the fourth grade. When my children were younger, we would make a trip or two to a pumpkin patch, either close by our house or out on the coast. That visit usually involved a hayride, which looked fun from the ground, but actually sitting on bales of hay traversing around a field full of potholes on the back of a flatbed truck was not something that I would pay to do twice in a 12-month period.
Now that I'm older, I always put a date on my calendar to go visit a nearby estate and gardens that decorates for Fall Harvest, and allows for walks through their closed-during-the-rest-of-the-year fields and grapevines. As well as orchards that sport mazes made from stacked hay bales, and offers opportunities for tastings and purchasing of food products made from fruits and vegetables grown right there on the grounds. It all looks so festive, but once I actually get there and start walking around, I can't wait to leave. The yellow-jackets and bees are too much! And it seems to get worse every year.
The Festive Fun of In-Flatables
Actually, one thing that I do enjoy about Fall is that it's the start of Inflatables Season.
I get to pull out small, innocuous-looking boxes from little cubbyholes here and there in the garage, and set up my first-in-a-series of cute, fun (cuz one actually moves), little-kid-friendly blowup holiday and seasonal decorations. I have them all lined up in my mind as to which ones get to make their appearance on my front porch when; starting from the first of October, all the way through the end of January.
I plug the character in and it quickly fills with air to grace my front yard from early morning through late into the evening. The neighborhood kids and their parents know that they are always welcome to come up on the porch to give any of the characters a big hug, or to snap a picture beside said character. Many of the kids make our house a daily stop for at least four months out of the year.
This year, I decided to set out a few lights to make my porch look a little more festive and bright as the hours of daylight are starting to shorten, and I really do NOT like that. Even though the days start getting shorter each year starting on June 22, I don't begin to feel it until around the first week or so of October. It looked so nice in my little front yard all throughout October, that the day after Halloween, as I took the orange and black inflatable costumed three foot high mouse-character-who's-name-starts-with-an-M down, I decided to add a few more lights. Then, with the help of my husband, I added a few more. It looked so nice, that I plugged in an interchangeable color spotlight to shine on the neighbors house that really added to the ambiance. And for the first time in my front porch decorating history, I decided to try using the timer feature on all of the lights. No more bending over twice a day for me to plug-in and unplug the lights!
Embracing the Magic of Fall; finding joy in simple pleasures
Last night, just as the sun was setting for the day, I stepped out onto the front porch to check on the lights and I actually took in a gasp of cool air. My porch was beautiful! I was looking out at a sea of tiny, sparkling white fairy lights, some cool white, some warm white, some looking like a starburst of illumination, some looking like little fireflies amongst the leaves. And they had all come on by themselves!
The next seasonal inflatable hadn't been taken out of the box and plugged in yet, so there was nothing to distract me from the wam gleam. Even the spotlight was helping by emitting a subtle orange glow.
It was right then that I realized, maybe I do like Fall. Maybe Fall isn't just a period of time that I have to pass through to get me from Summer into the Holidays. Maybe it's a time to slow down and enjoy some of the simple joys that I do like, (in addition to enjoying all of these fairy lights), such as starting my Christmas shopping early, when I can take my time and really enjoy looking for just the right gifts for my family and friends; taking the time to start making soups again, and filling the house with wonderful aromas from baking homemade bread and apple cinnamon muffins.
Or pulling out my favorite heavy blankets, quilts, PJs and robes, and climbing into bed early to read a good book, and staying in bed late in the morning, feeling so refreshed after getting a good, long nights sleep.
Standing on the porch, I thought about how much fairy lights remind me of stars in the sky. Where I live, because of all of the ground illumination in our metropolitan area, the sky never looks completely full of stars, but I know they are there, the brightest ones catching my eye at first, and then the more I adjust my eyes to the darkness, the more stars I see.
I thought about how with the additional hours of darkness out of the twenty-four total in a day, I actually am rewarded with even more opportunities to see stars, to maybe spot a planet or two, and perhaps be lucky enough to catch sight of a falling star. I'll be sure to make a wish if I do.
Maybe I do like Fall afterall...
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