Seasonings

I'm basking in the air conditioned front runner right now. It's way too hot outside. I can't take it. I acclimate to new seasons so quickly. Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. But if all of the sudden Fall is like "OOPS SORRY GUYS! LEMME BRB I FORGOT SOMETHING." and ducks out and lets Sumer plow forward again, I'm a hot mess, quite literally. That's not to say I can't handle Summer. But I don't do well if I get used to Fall weather and then Summer happens to me again. That's not fair.

While basking in this air conditioned train, I'm reminded of all of the things I like about the Fall. Just because I want to pretend it's gonna be Fall when I get off the train. It looks like Fall out there. The sky is super blue and the air is clean. The mountains are coming alive right before they die.

It's the cool thing to like Fall these days and that makes me mad. I'm no hipster, but I get how the hipsters feel now, liking something before it's cool then everyone starts to like it but they're only fair weather (PUNNNNNNSSSSS) friends. They like to look at Fall from their car windows while driving through it, and they like the smell of pumpkin and they like the vegetables and they like wearing their boots and walking through puddles. YOU DON'T GET FALL. You just don't get it like I do. When you've had to rake up peaches and tear the tomato cages off the withering skeletons of former tomato plants, and when you slip on the wet grass and land on your bum and get it all muddy and grassy but you're stuck like that for the rest of the day because you're already at school... and yet you still like it, then you get Fall.

I'm making Fall sound like a monster. And maybe it is. So maybe I'm a monster too, and we're monster friends together.

My liking of Fall started the second week of October on a Thursday when I was 12 and in 7th grade. I got to school early. The wind was blowing and it wasn't raining but you could tell by the mountains that it was going to rain. I walked around with my two seventh grade bffs and we talked about the old school Halloween movies. And I liked Fall ever since then.

I liked fall in high school because it meant marching season. It meant loving to wear the uniform because it was warm and then loving to take it off 2 hours later because it got soaking wet in the rain. It meant running off the bus to get in line for stew and breadsticks first. It meant cuddling under blankets in dark stadiums at midnight, waiting to hear what the results of the competition was.

I liked fall in high school because it meant the first day of school. And in case you couldn't tell by me becoming a teacher, I love school. I especially love when it starts because all of your supplies, your book bag, your shoes, your clothes, your pencils and notebooks and jackets, they were all new. And the school looked a way it wouldn't look again for another year. It looked kinda clean. Weird.

I liked fall in high school because yeah, marching band, but no longer competitions. Now FOOTBALL. And tail gating games and those insane fans like me who'd still come out for a game even if it was pouring rain. Running on the field hearing shouts of "UTAH! UTAH! UTAH!!!!" Traveling to new and exciting places like the distant land of California or Chicago with your team and going to eat at Dennys there with people you were forced to become fast friends with out of the sheer loneliness of being in college for the first time and not knowing who to talk to, so just following people around. Those friends turn out to be life friends.

I liked fall with Joseph because it was the first few months of dating and there was nothing more favorite than walking around holding his hand and letting go only to run and jump on a really crunchy looking leaf. I liked being married in the fall because it meant pumpkin picking and hay rides and buying candy for trick or treaters only to eat it the day before Halloween and just decide to turn off all the lights in the house on Halloween and pretend like we weren't there. And it meant our six months of marriage anniversary.

I liked fall for the senses. Like feeling successful for staying warm in a sweat shirt even though it was cold outside and that weird smell Fall gets. It's the smell of the leaves dying, which is sad, but it smells like Fall and I love it. I liked how super blue the sky was and how anything left green was a beautiful surprise. And waking up in the morning to see the first spots of white on the mountains was so EXCITING and the wind blowing that day was special wind because it touched the snow, so it was like you were touching the snow too, for the first time in a long time.

And this year I still like the Fall. I don't know what next year is going to be like! I don't know where we're going to live. I wonder what Fall will look like next year. It's going to be an adventure!