Autumn is here.

Put your head outside, and take a deep, big breath.

Do you smell that?
The leaves are changing.

I know it's been September for less than a week, I know it was suffocatingly hot and humid just three days ago, I know everything is still green....but I can still smell it.

I smell the leaves changing. I smell the new paper--notebooks, textbooks, test books, work books, the new pens and pencils and erasers to go with them. I smell the resolutions that this year will be different, this year will be the one where every test is studied for and every paper is aced. I smell hot spiced apple cider, I smell ripe pumpkins, I smell hay bales and melting caramel. I smell changing leaves.

I smell Fall.

Fall will always be my favorite time of year. Spring is second favorite, the fresh breezes and sunshine after Winter make me feel awakened and alive, makes me want to run through the woods, lie in the grass and stare up at the clouds. Summer bakes and warms me down to my bones and brings out my inner sun-worshipper. Winter is crisp, it's cozy, it invites you to come inside by the fire and cuddle up with your loved ones.

But Fall...Like Spring, Fall is a transitional season, a few short months between one extreme and another. Spring may be waking up, but Fall is coming home. It feels simultaneously eternal and momentary, the blue skies and fluffy clouds going on forever as the leaves change and the air starts feeling crisp and snow-laden. It's not too hot or too cold, but it's better than not-too-anything, it's Just Right, it's perfect.

I drove to 933 today with the windows down, wearing corduroys and a thick, long-sleeved hoodie, and it was perfect.

Fall is relief from the oven that is Summer, the deep, calm breath before the chill of Winter. Fall is hope, it's preparation, it's new chances, it's purposeful transition, it's nostalgia, it's an eternal moment.

It's perfect.