Although the temperature yesterday was 91, I can feel it coming – fall time; and I love it. Always sad to give a fond farewell to summer and all it offers here, I do love the fall. I drove home from work yesterday appreciating the first turn of a few leaves here and there on trees lining both sides of the highway. It made me drive a little slower, calmer and take notice of the beautiful oranges, slight yellows and tinges of apple red that were quietly present among the many green leaves, against a cloudless blue sky backdrop. As I merged into the heavy traffic that throngs us all Sunday thru Sunday, I felt lighter, happier and peaceful. I stayed in the left lane where necessary and when I could, I moved over to the right lane so as to time my drive home to my own pace. I turned the radio off and just enjoyed the brilliant sunshine and quiet rhythm of my tires on the asphalt. I became unaware of the hurried fast-pacers around me and felt grateful for the change of seasons that gives me something new to look forward to every few months.
The beauty of fall time always sweeps my thoughts directly to where I consider home, Upstate New York; Saratoga Springs to be specific. If you have been there you know the magic of the downtown area and the wonderful feeling of a Victorian town, steeped in history. Although I don’t get there enough for my satisfaction, when I do make a trip back I find it to be differently the same. There is something there with the beauty of the Skidmore College campus, the drive around Saratoga Lake, the well-maintained sprawling Victorian homes lining many of the streets and the sight of the Olde Bryan Inn that captivates my heart. Even with the expansion on the outskirts now offering more shopping and places to stay, I still feel the peace and comfort that I felt the six years I lived there.
I watched my daughter begin Kindergarten there, take her first school bus ride and saw her smiling face through the window while I wept and laughed at her evident independence. I had a house up on a steep hill in Greenfield Center which is approximately a fifteen minute drive from downtown Saratoga. It was a challenge in the winter, with the cold, snowy roads to make it up the hill, turn left into my steep inclined driveway without sliding into a ditch. Sometimes I made it, sometimes I didn’t. I had wonderful neighbors there who helped me as much as they could with my many trials and tribulations. My memories hold all of them in a special grateful and thankful place.
The house sat on almost a full acre lot, complete with woods behind me and across the road. Fall time was something to behold; it was a huge canvas of bold red, yellow and orange for as far as I could see. Unlike Halloween here, where many years my pumpkins have rotted on the porch from the heat of the autumn sun, there is no shortage of frost on the pumpkin in Upstate NY. Trick-or-treating was even done in a snowstorm one year; much to my young daughter’s disgust at having to cover up her costume with a winter parka. If you haven’t ever seen a New England fall, I implore you to make the trip – it’s breathtaking. If you have, you know there is nothing else like it.
Fall time beckons to us to get in our cars and take a leisurely ride or to climb back on our bicycles and gaze at the beauty around us.
And for some, it even says, “come home.”
