For the love of fall.

Yesterday was the first semi-chilly, drizzly day in Los Angeles. This means that it was 68 degrees, and I saw students all over campus wearing knee high boots, leggings and baggy sweaters. Two things in this life I cannot get over -- 1. the fashion sense of a college student, and 2. the quickness of those living in extreme climates to don clothing suited to the weather that is opposite to their typical weather experience (example: the propensity of a midwesterner to wear flip-flops as soon as the weather turns 50 degrees ). When I went to Oxford, I participated in both of these phenomena - so eager to wear cozy clothing once in a non-southern california enviornment, I also was encouraged by (a) my college fashion sense, and (b) my interpretation of the "funkiness" of british style, so that I readily layered sweater upon long-sleeved shirt upon scarf upon tights upon skirts, all varying in pattern and color, without hesitation or remorse.


Today, though my fashion sense is slightly more cultured (or so I like to think), I felt inclined to put on my new brown leather boots and pull the tweed skirt from the back of my closet. I still can't resist the pull all southern californians feel to "celebrate" the colder weather with attire that feels a bit out of place when the morning fog burns off and it turns out to be 80 degrees that afternoon.


But I don't care.


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Lovely and romantic: two words that come to mind when I think of fall -- the daylight escapes a little bit earlier. Yesterday on my drive home from work the trees and fields in parks were golden-green, rather than the more light-saturated kelly green of summer evenings.


The colors of fall are rich and beautiful, turquoise and crimson and plum and forest green. The popular textures of fabric (wool, tweed, corduroy) are warm and cozy.


So many of the activities that take place in the fall hold memories from past years. Whereas the months of spring and early summer pass without many "annual" events (aside from Easter and Memorial Day), fall is the time for going back to school, for crisp apples, for halloween parties, fall sports, warm soups, the joy of an hour more sleep when we "Fall back" for Daylight savings -- all the while the days are shortening as we head into Thanksgiving, Christmas and "winter." (sorry, L.A., I just can't take that word seriously around you).
Yes, fall is precursor to the dive into winter, which will lead to the next spring and the warm, long days of summer again. Perhaps it is the cycle of seasons that allows each to be beautiful. We can acknowledge and perhaps appreciate the bitterness of winter because we are looking forward to the thawing of spring.


I do think all seasons have their own glories. But to me, fall recalls beauty of a type I forgot existed. Each time autumn comes it catches me off guard; I am surprised  by its beauty and wonder at it and relish it.