Love at first....Fall.

Oh, how I love fall.
Its the perfect season..not inhumanly hot to the point where you must sweat your soul, but not so cold that going to get the mail means you may forfeit some necessary appendages.
I wait all year for the chance to walk down the block, right next to the curb and walk through the 6 inches of leaves that collects there every year.
I love to rake the leaves in my back yard, with my trusty work gloves that make me feel like a real gardener. I love the noise of the fallen leaves crushing together with every rake-stroke, but most of all, the pay out at the end. No, my mom does not pay me to rake, but I collect all the leaves from the trees in my back yard and put them in a huge pile at the foot of the ladder to my tree house. I filter through to rid them of pokey sticks, and rotten crab apples, sure to spoil the mass. And then, with not a shred of shame in me, climb to the 4th, (5th if I'm feeling risky) step of the ladder, and jump.
I love the sound of my corduroys making the corduroy noise wherever I walk, sure to make me smile if I'm walking in a hallway either by myself or with a complete stranger who must suffer through the whhit(step),whhit(step),whhit(step). Mittens can come out in the fall, another thing I look forward to after April forces them into my drawer. And to go with my mittens and corduroys- sweaters. Fall outfits are the only thing that make it okay to put away my beloved flip flops, although each fall, I seem to forget what shoes I wear in the non-summer months. I'm still trying to remember.
I love fall colors, mainly orange because its my favorite. Orange is the color of pumpkins which reminds me of the smell of the nasty you pull out when carving, a scent stapled into my memory with those pre-Halloween nights of my childhood, accompanied by the excitement and difficulty of deciding whether to be Mermaid Ariel or Princess Ariel that year. A clearly difficult dilemma only to be settled over the delicious confection that is candy corn. A sweet that is as waxy as it is perfect.
Lastly, I love that its called "fall". Non of that autumn nonsense for me. Its so simple, leaves fall, so it shall be called...Fall!

It's a beautiful thing.