October nurtures the inner child

I love autumn. I love the colors: the crimson leaves of dogwood and red maples starting to turn, the clear blue of October sky, the gold of hay bales and ripening fields. I love the smells: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, apple cider, caramel. It smells like home, it smells like comfort and warmth. I love the feel: the crispness in the air and the excuse it gives me to pull out a jacket for the first time and wear fun striped argyle socks, the drier air is wonderful for evening walks under a harvest moon. I love the sounds: the crunching of leaves, the wind rustling through the trees, the soft rainstorms. I love the foods of the season: pumpkin anything! (pumpkin soup, roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin butter), apple anything! (apple crisp, applesauce, apple pie, apple juice, or a crisp Jonagold apple), soup and cornbread, sweet potatoes, acorn squash.

I love autumn for its invitation for young and old to play. Not only do you get the sight and sound of colorful, rustling leaves, but you can make piles and jump in them! Not only do you enjoy the scenes of harvest time, but you can use those hay bales to stuff old clothes into a scarecrow! Not only do you see the rich orange of pumpkins, but you can have your very own, dig out the insides, and carve faces of your own creation! It is a time for bonfires and ghost stories, for hay rides, and carnivals, for apple bobbing, and trick-o-treating. The air is full of spices; goblins and ghouls, witches and wizards are prowling. It is a time of magical whimsy and color and mystery. Autumn is a time to be young again to relish in all the bounty of life; the final hoorah before a winter sleep.