Autumn Returning to Autumn

Autumn is just around the corner, but it's in the air now. Everyone is talking about the upcoming season as though it were a returning friend, and it is. The crisp air, bright leaves, and colorful memories of autumns passed return to envelop me in the reassuring embrace of an intimate friend. It could be at no better time as my first full year back home comes to completion. It is reassurance I am looking for as I continue to make plans for my future and search for contentment in my present. One whole year. Six years have come and gone just as quickly and carelessly as have I. But this is the year I stayed put. This is the year I returned home to be with family and to experience the seasons morph into one another and take over time. Each day dynamic so as to be continually new. Autumn returning to Autumn. Time continues as I stand still allowing the Winter Wind, the Spring Air, the Summer Draft, and the Autumn Breeze to swirl around me, whispering seasonal secrets and impelling me on my way through unexplored, kaleidoscopic time. Harvest and cider and mittens and scarves and pumpkins carved in close friendship and deep love. Lives being lived together and creating memories in the way must be meant to, for why else are we here together? The leaves have grown and now are getting ready to change colors and drop to new places at the roots, a new purpose. Already I hear them rustling as the low sun casts its long shadows on the warm ground.