Why we love orange, Fall, and the Necessity of Change

At this time of year, most of the leaves are turning. Beautiful hues of orange, yellow, and gold. The vibrant, green leaves that shaded us all summer surrender to the cold and change into brilliant colors. The first year we lived here, I caught my breath often at the beauty of Fall. One of my neighbors, who's lived in the Northeast her entire life, said, "But they're such a mess." What I saw as beauty, she saw as something else to deal with in an already busy life.

As I walked our dog, Ellie, today, I held onto that initial gasp of wonder I felt seven years ago when we moved here from South Florida where the leaves never change. I embraced the crisp air and thought of the changes to come. How the leaves will fall from the trees. Making them bare during the coldest, harshest temperatures. This is why we in the Northeast savor Fall. Because it represents a transition and a time we want to freeze as we brace ourselves for the difficulties of Winter. You see orange everywhere. Pumpkin pie. Apple cider. Fall mums blooming in the crevices of summer's goodbye. Echoing the colors surrounding the ever-dwindling twilight landscape as the days grow shorter.

Such is the complexity of life. To truly appreciate the summer afternoons that extend past bedtime, and the crisp Fall mornings that transform everything around us, and embrace the beauty of the first white-washed snowfall in December--we must surrender to the difference. Drastic change is necessary not only to renew us, but to force us to appreciate the phases of our lives. Requiring us to embrace both the beauty and the difficulty of change.

Writing is an evolution of the soul. You find a spark, an idea, that forces you to sit and write it down. However messy or difficult it might be. And as the seasons change, you embrace the simplicities of what you're trying to express, while understanding how it might be messy and bare and exposed. But you know that what is inside of you needs to move through the seasons until it blooms into the thing you hope it to be.