Changing Colors

It's getting to be that time again, where fall seems to be filling the air. The smell of leaves, the fires burning in the distance, the crisp cool air, and the days that seem too short to bear. I love fall, and it is not quite here -- but it's coming, and I am so glad. But, each time that air changes and with each leave that reddens, it makes me miss Lexington all the more. There is no greater place to be, in my opinion, than my beloved former hometown in the fall.

I still remember the way September felt - warm, with some of the best sunshine you would find in the year. It's the time when students started to find their groove, traffic made you pull your hair out, and the air was still hot enough to make you curse. It was the time of year where I was the busiest, preparing for that annual conference that made me lose sleep and peace of mind, the month when I could swear the Hobbit House felt like an oven. It was the month you were forever changed when those planes hit the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and that field in Pennsylvania. The month you got an EKG and the month you started your job at that beloved company you used to call yours. It was September that you could love because it ushered in all that the next few months would bring, but the month you inadvertently loathed because in so many ways it always felt like hell.

As the last days of the September summer melted away, Lexington prepared for her finest month of the year, October. Glorious October. It was the time where you looked forward to Keeneland and UK football, tailgating at Commonwealth with a wealth of your friends. Where you would hear "first down Kentucky!" over the loud speakers from the open windows of your bedroom, and the month where you would walk by Henry Clay's house and let Abby run in the fallen leaves. It was the month when sweaters made their annual debut and the time of year that you were finally able to start making soup again without being asphyxiated by the heat of your dome shaped kitchen. It was everything in the rain and the sun, the warmth and the cold, the way the days looked, the air smelled, and the nights when the stars were at their best. October was the month you moved into your first apartment, the month you started dating again, the month your heart melted, and the month when you always felt most alive.

And as you lived in that familiar fall bliss, October's grasp would loosen and the cold air would sweep in and give way to November. November, when you knew fall was in its prime and there was no trace of the warmth of the sun that shone so brightly only weeks before. It was November when you would walk to your car and shiver for the first time. There, when the crisp, cold mornings left frost on the pumpkins and where everywhere you turned you instantly had a craving for Uncle Chuck's turkey and dressing. It's November when your Saturday's were spent at Shamrock's, watching football in a favorite sweatshirt, protected from the cold...the place where your stomach would tie up in knots on the third Saturday of the month when The Ohio State University ritualistically played that team up North. It was those days of Irish Nachos, Miller Lite, and phone calls to Columbus to savor the exictement and pride you'd feel when they beat those Wolverines. It is November that you remember to be the month that your heart was stolen via text message. It will always sadly be the month where your greatest champion's days came to an end, with you standing beside her, hand-in-hand for her final moments and last falling tear. It's the month where you've never felt more numb because of the sadness that came from losing her.

I feel all of that now, each time I step outside and smell the air and see the signs pointing to fall.

Remembering with rock-solid affinity, and unyielding certainty that each year the calendar turns it's page, no matter where I lay my head, I will close my eyes and be transported in an instant to the life I lived and loved in Lexington.

Transported back to the magnificent ease that was.