Not the first time I have written about this quote...and probably not the last. I am sure there are many people’s whose lives begin anew in the Spring. Or Summer, or even maybe very strong people whose lives rejuvenate in the Winter. I don’t know many of those people...but I am sure they are out there.
For those of you who do not know, this is a quote from the late, great F. Scott Fitzgerald. And like so many of his words, they speak to me on levels I lack the ability to completely express. Which is why I seem to write about this at least once every single year.
I am not sure I can even describe the feeling I get when Fall descends upon us. When the air gets sharp and cold. The mornings now command your attention in ways they haven’t for months. Early morning hikes require planning for both cold and light.
There isn’t anything I do not love about Fall and today as it is November 1st, for me, Fall has made its official arrival. Commanding our attention, presence and allowing all the stuff we have held onto all year to fall away once more. I am sure there are many salient arguments for Spring being the time of year that life begins again. But I believe that F. Scott was talking about the ending being a necessary part of any beginning. Sure Spring is wonderful with all its verdant shoots and blossoms. But there is a lot that must have happened before in order for those tendrils to push their way to the surface and mature.
And it is Fall where all that is presently alive begins to wane, the leaves shed their green for the brilliance of orange, red and yellow. They dazzle us with the most spectacular showing. I was just in New England and I can tell you that if Fall had a permanent residence, it would be Maine or Vermont. Fuck, it was dazzling!
In my own life, Fall is the time where I feel like my life restarts. I currently feel rejuvenated and lit by the fires that Fall evokes. My life feeling like I am finally done living in a hell I chose to live in for a long time. Now finally free and beginning again. And there is something about the coldness of weather, the chill of air on frosty mornings that signals this in me. And without it, I might change but it would not feel this good. I would not feel this present and I would not be as awake to the process.
I don’t know about other people whose lives begin in other seasons. I just know that I begin in the Fall. My life, my love, my heart and my soul changes with the foliage and lays bare myself for further examination, exploration and interest. It is only by the old me, falling away that I gain access to the stark hardness that will come within me in Winter. I am a hibernator and will spend a great deal of my Winter inside, reading, writing, football watching and time on my couch in front of a blazing fire, cats littered everywhere, rendered motionless by the heat of a well tended fire.
Fall is the signal of the more to come for me. I don’t always like what is revealed but I do anxiously await the next revelation, the next insight and renewed sense of purpose. Life here in this season of change, the one that comes right before the season of the sticks (Winter) grants me safe passage to go inward with a fanfare and showiness that only Fall could display.
It is my favorite season for a lot of reasons but mostly it is because I feel most alive at this time of year when I am being pushed and moved forward into some better version of myself.
Again...still.
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