Delicious Autumn

Well, September slipped through our fingers like running water, didn't it? Or is that just my perception because I'm older now?  The days seem to be whizzing by with much greater speed than I had anticipated.

When I was a kid, it seemed as if time stood still. I swear, I could watch grass grow the summer before I started kindergarten. Hours dragged, and days lasted eternities. 

When I hit high school, days were filled with homework, 4-H, church youth meetings, and family time. Weeks gathered speed. 

When I became a mom, months charged at me all at once. 

Now that I have retired, years are passing me by, all too fast.

One of my cousins shared part of an e.e. cummings poem on Facebook the other day.

a wind has blown the rain away and blown the 

sky away, and all the leaves away, and the

trees stand. I think i too have known

autumn too long

I love e.e. cummings, but I don't think I've ever known an autumn too long. My cousin was reading the deeper meaning of the poem, however, and it touched her.  True to form, I read it literally, and was touched, too. 

An autumn too long? NEVER. Autumn doesn't begin soon enough and it doesn't last long enough. In an ideal world, we would live in a tropical paradise full of trees whose leaves are in a perpetual state of autumnal splendor. 

Please don't bother to explain to me that deciduous trees are not indigenous to oceanfront properties. My ideal world does not bother with the particulars of science. (There are also details regarding calories and weight loss  in my ideal world which do not follow any current physical laws, but I digress.)

Now the following quote from George Eliot is more like the way I would talk about fall:

     "Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeing the successive autumns."

Seeking successive autumns would be the most sublime of pastimes.

October ushers us into the thick of fall. There is no shortage of recipes containing pumpkin, apples are filling cold storage units everywhere, and a hint of caramel will complement any dessert of the season. Harvest displays full of pumpkins and gourds welcome us into the grocery stores. School hallways are bulging with fall leaves and jack-o'-lanterns.

The weather is cooler. Sandals find their way deeper into closets, as sensible shoes that cover our toes surface once again. T-shirts and shorts are replaced with hoodies and jeans. The lighter fare of summer salads gives way to the heartier soups and casseroles of autumn at the dinner table.

Now if only we could figure out a way to make these autumn days S-L-O-W D-O-W-N. Pumpkins, fall leaves, scarecrows, corn stalks; all of the gifts of harvest time make me feel so nostalgic. I want plenty of time to enjoy every delicious change as it comes, and I don't want to miss a thing.