I love the fall.  Even though sometimes life just feels really hard, and for me, now is one of those times, I still love the fall.

The recent two-day heat wave has been a bummer ~ but my weather app tells me confidently that this weekend is going to be lovely (aka, in my perfect place, the 60s), the man and I are headed to Happy Valley to root on my alma mater and I am currently enjoying my newest love ~ Zen Tazo Green Tea, from the Keurig.

My brain has been at full capacity lately ~ full of life, and philosophy, and work (of course).  I guess often times, you don’t think about things until you’re up against it ~ like the benefit of good health benefits.  I went for years in my twenties without coverage.  I was only added to my husband’s plan earlier this year ~ and then, of course, it became an unexpected blessing to have quality coverage as we’ve navigated the rough waters of MS diagnosis and (endless) testing and (lifelong) medication.

Sometimes it’s hard to see those blessings when everything else feels so hard.  I keep thinking of the saying “you can’t see the forest for the trees” but I think it’s more like “you can’t see individual trees for the forest”.

This week, for instance, I discovered the green tea K-cups (which seems like a small thing, but when you have a Starbucks addiction as I do, but choose not to spend $5/day on a hot beverage, this is an amazing discovery.  In fact, I have been searching for something I truly loved for the Keurig for months … and this week, poof!, there it was.  Beautiful!).  I also happened upon Melody Gardot on Pandora, and until I began listening to her music, I didn’t realize how much I loved that jazzy, throw back sound ~ like sitting in a Parisian nightclub wearing a ’20s flapper dress and sipping a gin fizz.  And I began listening, and I felt at ease, remembering moments from my youth and my mother’s Ella Fitzgerald sings the Cole Porter Songbook album.  The music evokes an air of innocence ~ curled up & reading gentle books like Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher (quite probably my favorite book of all time), or wandering through misty green fields wearing Wellington boots.

Life can be ugly and messy and mean and … well, gray.  Gray as in ~ no right or wrong, just the slushy mess in-between.  Maybe I like being naive, maybe I like clinging to the dream of simplicity.  I’m not sure.

I think this time of year breeds nostalgia ~ the memories of back to school, and big snuggly sweaters and hot chocolate.  Flashbacks to a time when life didn’t feel nearly as hard as it does right now (well, for me at least!)  Back when you had to ask your parents to borrow the car, get home by curfew ~ when the biggest angst was being asked to Homecoming.

I don’t know if I’d want to go back to a time before I knew my husband.  I wasn’t lucky enough to meet him in high school … or college.  I think we both had some learning and growing to do before we could fit together.  But no matter how nostalgic I am sometimes for the simplicity of being the child instead of the adult, I guess that’s the beauty of life.  Could we all have so joyously embraced life if we knew then what we know now?  Maybe… maybe not.

I love the fall.  I love the changing colors and the cooling temperatures.  I love the smell of the leaves and the routine of football weekends.  I love the ramp up to the holidays, and the anticipation.  The man says we can better appreciate and love each season because none last ~ they cycle through and there are ups and downs of all the seasons (it is back-to-school after all, I guess).

One of my favorite mental images about the fall comes from You’ve Got Mail.  I can’t remember the line precisely ~ it occurs in voiceover, as the audience is introduced to the two main characters’ email relationship. The line includes the phrase “a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils” which to me, was so visceral and real.  What an incredible image.

Anyway, that’s a little ramble from me.  When I can’t get the doctor’s office to call me back, or get my boss to make a decision about insurance coverage or find a dog-sitter the man is happy with ~ when all those things are happening at the same moment, I am so glad it’s fall.  And I have a Green Tea K-cup, and Melody Gardot is singing to me.
Xo.