The Final Fall

This was a post I had drafted a couple of days ago:

The days are still warm, but mornings when I crawl out of bed, grasping at consciousness, trying to fight my way out of my groggy state of sleep, are cold. The evenings are substantially cooler as well, after the sun goes down. I no longer overlook a lake, but a waterway (it sounds more exciting than it is, really) and I miss the mistiness that would hang over the water on those days when the weather was changing.

Where I live currently is not a place that is particularly known for the changing of the colors of the leaves. Which is too bad, since I live in "The City of Trees." They go from green and lush to empty. One day, the leaves just fall off and all that's left is the naked wood of the slumbering branches.

In the PNW I used to really enjoy the fall and the spring seasons (I actually used to enjoy all the seasons actually). But here, we have hot and cold, and no real transitional beauty to go with it, which I dislike greatly.

For now, I will find the beauty in the changing of the season as it presents itself to me, knowing that this will (hopefully) be the last fall I will be in this location. Come late spring/early summer, life will be taking me eslewhere. It is what it is and I will try to enjoy it for what it is.

However, today.....

I had a harder than usual time getting out of bed today. Outside I could hear the wind and the rain, and it brought me odd comfort. Being a Portland boy (not by birth, but it is the city I have lost my heart to, forever to call it Home), I don't mind the rain so much, so hearing it fall outside my window was relaxing and served to keep me in that odd, twilight state between being really awake and really asleep. But I enjoyed the sensation, and hit snooze as many times as I could.

My dogs hate wetness. So walking them this morning was a bit traumatic: not only is it raining pretty hard, it's pretty blustery. They had they're ears back in irritation the whole time we were out this morning. Even in the parking structure they didn't want to do their bizness.

I had to even turn my heat on this morning a bit. There's something about that smell of cranking the ole heater up for the first time each fall. I actually enjoy that, too. Weird?

The first BIG rain of the season. I love it.

Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the rain will be short lived: life must me dealt with. There are lawyers to hire (a whole other post), meetings to get to, papers to grade, dishes to clean... you get the idea.

I'm going to post this, then before I start to tackle my responsibilities, I'm going to enjoy the sound of the rain.