A friend sent me a link to an article about Fall and Nature putting on her best dress.
It covered some typical things about Fall having a sense of death, fallow ground, bring the focus to the shortness of life and our sense of mortality.

Sorry, that is not my sense of Fall. I read things like this and, while I appreciate what they are talking about, I have strong knee-jerk reactions to all the quiet, peace, doom, gloom. This could be because I can’t stand to be “normal” and therefore have to chose a different point of view but I don’t think so. Or it could be that I don’t consider death to be a dark thing. I look at it as something positive, an ending to suffering, a release.

My view on Fall is a sense of opening, of freedom, expansion.

School provided contact with other people, new information/activities/knowledge an end to endless days of staring at the TV.

The change in the weather means I am no longer confined to indoors where I can control the temperature. I can layer up to whatever level needed and go anywhere. Since moving to the bay area, Fall means I no longer have a restriction of where I can drive to. Rain appears and makes me happy. The sky is overcast and I am free from the sun.

Halloween is a wondrous time in Fall. I can lose the facade of normalcy and be whoever/whatever I want. I have the options to expand to fill any niche my personality has. I can stretch out.

Even the darkness has a use. You can tailor you light to what you need instead of being stuck with what is available. You can sleep in without the sun waking you up. You can feel the comfort of fireplaces and candlelight. I have always tried to live in places that got very little light from the outside because I prefer being in control of it myself.

Fall is not a time to close down, it is a time to open up. It is a time to drink deeply of the bounty that the work during the summer provides.

I think the reason I have such a knee-jerk reaction to the other point-of-view is not so much because I don’t share it but that my primary point-of-view is not represented. It seems like no one else appreciates the opening/expansion/release/freedom/options that are inherent in Fall. Once that is covered, then I can relax enough to appreciate the closing/withdrawing/stillness that others seem to see.

Now, I really do have work I need to do. This just really wanted to get expressed.