Then and Now: A Fall Retrospective

I love the fall.

For those of you not in the know, I grew up in New England. From the time I was a baby till about the age of 12, I lived amongst the mountains in New England. Quite honestly, I was blessed to grow up in such a fantastically beautiful place.

Growing up on the east coast tucked away safely in the mountains is really just like it seems in the movies. I won't lie. In grade school we took field trips to apple orchards and pumpkin patches. We'd spend whole afternoons just doing sweet art projects with leaves that have changed color. As we got older they took us to those living museums where everyone dresses and acts like its 1774. We went to visit Plymouth Rock. This was quite literally what my childhood was. New England stuff movies are made of Magic.
The whole world was filled with the fantastic smell of pumpkins and trees and the faint hint of cold headed your way.

I know a lot of people consider the first snow fall of the year to be magical (I always made a wish on the first snowfall). And when you KNOW spring is coming, that feels special too. But for me, the best time of the year is the fall.

When coffee shops put out their specialty flavored coffees, when school supplies are everywhere and you can't help but get nostalgic for the best lunch box you ever had (I'm looking at you, Barbie lunchbox). When that first cold front moves in, and you have to dig out your favorite hoodie but don't need your jacket just yet. Fall means you get to snuggle up with a blanket and pumpkin spice coffee and watch tv.
Fall means Thanksgiving with the cornucopias and the cute friendly scarecrow decorations in peoples yards. The warm muted colors that automatically make you think of scarves and warm socks. Fall also (to me) means family and being all together.

The first 23 years of my life, I had this type of fall every year. And it was fantastic.

Now, living in Florida where there is a noticeable weather change, it's quite different in the fall. The leaves don't change color, but oddly enough, they do fall. The skies tend to stay a dark grey, always seconds from raining. The weather does get cooler, but with humidity it still feels the same as it ever did (Wicked hot).

You can still go swimming everyday. I still run the risk of getting sunburnt if I don't put on sunscreen before running my errands. A hoodie is not required, and won't be for several more months.
Don't get me wrong, you still get the fall stuff. Flavored coffees, school supplies, cute scarecrow lawn decorations, pumpkins everywhere, dried corn. That still happens. It just doesn't feel the same, especially to a gal who grew up knowing how to do Fall right.

I think Fall can really be like anyone's version of home. It is what you make it. Maybe I'm not able to roll around in a pile of leaves and smell that fantastic smell. But I don't have to rake leaves anymore (palm trees do lose their leaves, but they're so big you don't have to rake them! Haha, suckers). Maybe I'm not in the Upper Peninsula to go see this year's production of Rocky Horror Picture Show at Negaunee's Vista Theater, as I've done almost every year since I turned 15. But I've found a local theater that plays The Rocky Horror Picture Show movie every year and encourages dressing up and throwing things at the screen.

When you're young, you have your own version of home and tradition. You know that Grandma's gonna make the gravy at Thanksgiving because she's the only one who does it right. You know that if all else fails, your group of friends will be down for going out for a couple drinks on Halloween. You can count on going to the corn maze and getting lost and drinking cider.

Once you've grown up, and you don't have the same people around and the ability to keep those same traditions, you build your own. Now instead of a big family dinner, we watch a marathon of LOST and eat for weeks on a small turkey that previously wouldn't have fed 1/4 of our family. Instead of going to Holiday gas station for the best coffee in the world, I meet friends out for drinks and laugh about sports and work and life.


Sometimes I get sad. I miss the fall I grew up knowing. The fall you could count on, that would most definately require you to wear a winter jacket over your Halloween costume. Then I can't really be sad, because I know people who've never even seen it snow, who've never seen the leaves change and don't know what magic that is. That is sad.

I've experienced the change of seasons so many times that I've always considered there to be 5 seasons (Mud Season: That delightful time when the snow hasn't quite left so the ground is always muddy and moist and gross). I've left my winter coat hanging up year-round because you never know. So now, living where I don't have to worry about waking up to two feet of snow, where I can be tan year-round without shelling out money on a tanning bed, where you can go to the drive-in on Christmas day if you really want to, I'm content to miss the Fall.

The fall is wonderful. Its the start of some of the best parts of the year. Even if now it's a completely different version of the fall I've always known, it is the time of year I look forward to most.

I dig music.

I have always been really into music. Even as a wee tot, I loved listening to music. The earliest I can remember, I was always rocking out to New Kids On The Block, Prince, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimmy Buffett. It's safe to say, even back then, I had a very eclectic taste in music.

Growing up I went through phases. I was hot and heavy with Country music for a long time. Then, well, the "Wigger" craze swept the nation and I was all about House of Pain and Cypress Hill. True story.
As I closed in on being a teenager I was more into pop music. I went stove top crazy for Jewel, Hanson, The Spice Girls, Hootie and The Blowfish, Alanis Morissette. I was listening to music non-stop. A song would come on the radio and in the first ten seconds I could tell you the name of the song, the artist and the name of the album. (An ability I still wish I had)

In high school, it was less cool to be into pop music. Most of my friends listened to metal, so I listened to Slipknot and Mudvayne. I loved Staind and Linkin Park. I also knew every word to Nelly's singles off of his Country Grammar cd, so I mixed it up a bit.

Then something happened when I was 15. I was babysitting for my sister's friend, and as all baby-sitters do, I had on Mtv 2. (Cuz even ten years ago, you couldn't watch music videos on Mtv) I remember this night as vividly as I remember what I did this morning. That's how much it changed and shaped me as a person, musically.

The music video for New Found Glory's "Hit or Miss" came on. I froze where I was, my stomach felt like someone was wringing it out. My heart stopped. All I could do was just watch this band and feel this music. I was in love. The guitar riffs and the beat, the way Jordan Pundik sang.

I had discovered Pop-Punk music.

I discovered other bands that night (Shout out to American Hi-Fi, Sum41 and Alien Ant Farm!) but I couldn't shake the feeling of love I had for this band, New Found Glory. I made it my mission to find out everything I could about them, to listen to everything they'd recorded.
In my mission of courting New Found Glory, I also discovered other bands that still possess my heart. The Ataris, MxPx, Good Charlotte, The Get Up Kids, Bowling For Soup and Alkaline Trio.

As I got older, my love for pop-punk music didn't change. I ate up every album I could find in the genre (Remember the Beer Nuts compilations! LOL). But I kept my ears open to other music, too. I was always finding new bands, searching for music by lyrics or random recommendations. To this day, I will still go to Wikipedia, type in a band name and then check out the bands Wikipedia says they sound like.
I got into emo music for a while, and still feel like a kid at Christmas when I find a new random acoustic cover of any song because of that.

Now, in my mid-twenties, I listen to everything. I love country music, I can't listen to a Jay-Z or Drake song without turning my radio up to speaker-busting volumes. I listen to newer punk/pop punk music.

Sadly, I dont spend as much time as I used to looking for new music, I stick to the same stuff I've had in my iTunes library for ages (I have 28 GB on my computer of music. New music gets lost in the shuffle most of the time, sadly). Thankfully I do have some really great friends who always have new music to suggest to me, so whenever I feel the need for something new, I got them to help a sistah out (Thanks guys!).


I've found some bands from time to time that has made me feel the way New Found Glory did that first day. It's rare, but every time has been a little magical. I felt that way the first time I heard "Hands Down" by Dashboard Confessional, "Home" by Michael Buble, and "Our Song" by Taylor Swift.

Most recently I've felt this way when I saw The Dollyrots perform in February. I'll admit, I had judged The Dollyrots hardcore before I saw/heard them. I didn't think I'd like them in the slightest. Then they came out on stage, and they went into their first song, I was done for. I couldn't move. I will tell anyone this story, whenever you hear about a band/artist having "It", that's what it was like for me watching them the first time. Their music is amazing and original. They're a really cool band.

I also felt this same way the first time I listened to my friend Brad's band, I'm Not A Bazooka. With I'm Not A Bazooka, I felt the same way I did hearing Hit Or Miss that night ten years ago. I couldn't move or breathe by the sheer awesomeness that was this band.


As someone who has loved music as much as I have, you'd think I'd be making my own music. And I haven't. Yet. Recently all I can think about is how much I want to learn how to play guitar and start my own band. I've got a friend who plays drums and guitar, and is willing to not only humor my rock-band delusions, but will help me learn to play.
These days the only thing in my head is thinking about music. Do I want to learn how to play bass guitar? Or just straight up electric? Do I want to start out like a cool kid and learn the ukulele first? I'd honestly like to learn to play them all, but a girl's gotta start somewhere.

Growing up listening to so many different types of music, and appreciating different types of music, it's daunting to think of sitting down and learning to play. What if every good song in the world has already been written, and I'll just be playing my version of someone else's song?

But again, it's all I can think about. Getting a guitar, starting a band. Playing really shitty dive bars. I'm a firm believer of the school of thought, "If you can't get something off your mind, it's supposed to be there."


So in the coming months I'll be getting my own guitar, and will be learning to play. Maybe I'll be fucking terrible and I'll quit it after a while. Or maybe someday I'll make some unsuspecting 15 year old baby sitter freeze dead in their tracks when they hear my music, and send them off on the musical journey New Found Glory sent me on, all those years ago.