"Tut tut, it looks like rain!"

Except for the blue skies and weather warnings about temperatures nearing 100.
In October.

Dear Fall,

So, this is how you want to play it.  Come into our lives for two whole days, bringing a few crunchy leaves and hauling two solid days of rain in from the ocean...before you just skip town in the night.  Oh, sure, you left us some dry winds and trees that look as if they've been sprinkled with cinnamon.  But where is our romantic change of seasons, our inspiring and sobering sense that the world is turning right under our feet?  Why don't we get the chance to reflect thoughtfully on our lives as a cold, crisp, changeful wind bites at our cheeks and noses?  We see no vibrant leaves letting go from their twigs softly and suddenly, as if with a good-bye kiss, before drifting sweetly to the ground like a falling flame.

Look, I understand that you're all about the East Coast.  They're metropolitan and hip there; they understand you.  What do we have to offer you here in the southwest?  Desert and tacos.  Really good tacos.  But you don't care.  You're an eastern girl, and I guess I can't blame you for wanting to return home every year.  At least you came to visit, right?  I guess two days of autumn is all I can really expect.  I just hope we didn't do anything to make you want to leave early.  Was it our flippant disregard for your arrival, our inappropriate wardrobe choices, our untimely beach excursions?  Whatever it was, I'm sorry.  Please come back.

Maybe I could come visit you over there sometime.  After all, I spent three years in Ohio during school, and we had a pretty fun time.  Crunching leaves, dressing in layers.  Remember the time I made caramel apples with some friends and my face felt like it was sticky for weeks?  And then the times I would walk down to the golf course and sit there in the evening dusk until the dampness from the putting green had soaked through my wool coat and jeans, chilling my unmentionables....  Those were some good times, right?

...Oh, who am I kidding?  I was born a Californian and I'll always be a Californian.  I wasn't made for a real fall.  The dry heat and the winter winds are in my bones.  Even if I moved back East, I wouldn't know what to do with all this autumn.  I would suffer a sensory overload from all the colors and smells of earth and spices; shivers down to my marrow would show me just how woefully unprepared I am for Real Weather.

A real-life umbrella!  I've only heard the tales.... Look, it keeps the
sky-water off their heads ten times better than this silly hood!  I
shall buy one for my poodle.

I made some hot apple cider the other day.  It was out of a package, so it tasted a little watery and the flavored granules never did dissolve properly.  I miss you.

Please come back,
Tracy Thunderbolt.



Images via Polyvore, Isn't It Lovely?