Being from New England, where the crisp autumn air smells like magic and holds the promise of apple cider donuts and fresh-picked bushels of apples, and you can count on the scenic winding roads being clogged with slow-moving leaf-peepers all weekend long, fall is my favorite season. If you've never seen fall in New England, you're missing out. The mountains look like something out of a dream world - with shades of gold, orange and red that don't seem like they could possibly occur naturally. Driving up into Vermont when the leaves are in all their technicolor splendor should be on everyone's bucket list. You wouldn't need Instagram to take a breathtaking photo. To me, fall means fleece vests and apple cider and jumping in piles of leaves. It's football and sweaters and post-season baseball (sometimes...).
Of course, I live in Chicago now, and it would be really stupid for me to jump in a leaf pile since my dog probably just peed in those leaves. And the leaves pretty much just turn yellow and brown. And the only time we get fleece vest temperature is close to summer. Or inside.
But even though this pseudo/shoulder season that lasts about 4 days (most of which are overcast and rainy) doesn't have the feel of fall in Western Mass, fall still means Halloween. Candy and costumes? What could be better?
I was totally the kid who trick-or-treated until sophomore year in high school. Anyone who knows me knows that I am All About Costumes. I even tried to convince JP to have a costume wedding (only half-seriously because of course I knew he would never go for it and also one of my cousins had done a costume wedding...)
A friend noted recently that she knew this month would be hard for me because JP and I loved Halloween so much. And she's right: we did. JP may have pretended not to be into Halloween, and that he was just doing it for my sake, but I know better. Not that I don't think he did it partly for me - he did. But someone who doesn't enjoy it doesn't spend hours every year working on a costume, mmmkay? I'll save the photo montage for the actual day, but I am certainly reliving memories of wonderful Halloweens spent together all month long.
The weather hasn't been terrible yet, and I'm trying to enjoy the fall. But it's hard. I'm so wrapped up in school, and in worrying about Maddy, that I haven't started to plan Max's costume. I'm just starting to look for a pumpkin patch to take him to, and wishing we had done that last year. It's something we were looking forward to, and then the time just got away from us. And now Max will never have gone to a pumpkin patch with his daddy. Which, of course, in the grand scheme of things - things that Max will never do with his father - is a tiny, insignificant nothing. But it still makes me sad.
Autumn used to make me feel inspired and alive. This year it's just one step closer to the long, dark, freezing, bleak winter. And winter will bring with it the first anniversary of my loss. And now fall just feels like the harbinger of bad times to come.
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