She awoke yesterday with the distinct knowledge that it was fall, fall 2020; an end to the record setting heat and the beginning of joy and vitality for fall is her favorite season.  Never mind the calendar says fall will not arrive for another eleven days. Her body, her mind, and especially her spirit knows it is fall. Her favorite season. The season of her bloom. Did she know it was coming? Of course. As regular as the herald of any season, she smelled it on the breeze one day in August and then it retreated, faded again into the obscurity of 90 degree temperatures in a mountain town of nearly seven thousand feet where homes have no air-conditioning because repeated days of summer heat are not expected. She heartily believes in global warming because that is what the earth does. It warms, it cools, more regular than present day clockwork, though each heave and undulation spans more eons than her lifetime.

It is fall and life is perfect. Perfect outdoor temperature for hiking any hour of the day without overheating or freezing. Perfect indoor temperature for baking. Perfect weather for pairing shorts with sweaters. Perfect time for scorched dreams and waning energy to resurrect and move forward. Genius simmers on the back burner. Dreams and schemes once withered in the summer heat are urgently planted like fall bulbs to take root under the snow. The promise of spring again seems a possibility.

It is fall and she has escaped so far the fires, the hurricanes, the murder hornets, homelessness, starvation, and covid19.

It is fall. She will squeeze every last drop – like cider from an apple – until the freeze of winter. And then she will cozy up by a fire and reminisce.

She wakes and it is fall.

Or, more accurately said:

it is fall and she wakes.