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.