I love FALL. In many ways it is my favorite season. I love the crispness in the air, the cooler nights, sleeping with the windows open, snuggling on the sofa wrapped in my favorite blanket. Of course there are things about the fall I don’t like as much. Football, back to school, outside schedules and the hum-drum of routine… I don’t like the time change and the sun setting early.. sending Matthew off in the dark only to have him return in the dark….But, I rejoice in the changing of the colors of the trees and the amazing smell of grapes that seem to permeate our little valley. I love all the fairs and rodeos that take place this time of the year. Walla Walla Frontier Days and the Pendleton Round Up, to name just a couple. I love the more quiet evenings sitting with girlfriends catching up on all the goings on while we were all chasing the kids, or the dreams all summer long.
It is in the fall that I tend to slow down, slightly, and dust off the pile of books that I have collected over the summer thinking that I will find some hammock and read the summer nights away.. which never really ever happens. But, for whatever the reason this has become a ritual.
There is always a part of me that is sad to see summer ready to takes its leave, but this year, perhaps more than any other year, I will lovingly say my farewells. It has been a doozy, one that has had amazing highs and devastating lows.
But, this fall I welcome a new daughter-in-law into the family. Get to put my arms around all my children as they come home for this joyous occasion, and I am ready to write. I have been “chewing” all summer on some of the things I wrote last fall and winter, letting their stories marinate…sitting with them, and allowing the characters to take root and tell me where it is that they want to go in the story.
I have been asking myself as I run from one fun summer outing to another, “What is my next chapter?” what do I want to accomplish next? experience next? and there are some things that I am ready to take on, ready to let go of, ready to experience anew.
Inwardly, I feel like I am standing outside of the gate of what comes next, and all I have to do is to push it open, and walk into it. There are whiffs of the unknown in the air, an anticipation, I feel it in the breeze. Yep, Fall is in the air.
A Cowgirl Called 