Fall

 “Let us be grateful

to people who make us happy;

they are the charming gardners

who make our souls blossom”

  -Marcel Proust

It’s that time of year.  Fall.  The time when children go back to school, the orderliness of schedules comes back into our lives after the looseness of summer. 

Fall catalogues arrive bursting with the latest fashions.  One such catalogue arrived in my mailbox and I almost went out of my mind.  The J.Crew fall catalogue had me salivating.  It was the colors.  As an artist, that is what I am attracted to and the colors were jumping off the page and I was ready to buy everything, vivid, brilliant and pink and bright blue and it was a sensory overload.  I even talked to my son’s about it and they don’t care about fashion or clothes.

I couldn’t help myself.  I felt like someone finally had my sense of color and style.  I can’t, really don’t have that kind of budget, but it will influence my color scheme.  I don’t fit into J.Crew pants anyway. But the colors had me going for a while.

Fall.  Football.  College ball, pro ball, high school ball.  I love football. Even if I forget how the game is played until someone reminds me again.  But I pick my teams based on the color of their uniforms(I am girly like that) and if it is Stanford, UCLA, USC I have to represent, also Longhorns and Michigan, or Ohio, or Florida unless they are playing one of my aforementioned teams.

Fall.  The air is cooler, the air begins to get a little cooler everyday. Crisp, fresh with infinite possibilities.

Children go back to their classrooms ready to resume their learning processes.  They are a little bigger, relaxed from the summer of hanging out.  Or they are children beginning their first school experience.

For the latter learning to be a part of a community, to sit together, eat together, play, laugh and learn together. Huge. Wonderful.

Teachers also go back to their classrooms, rested from their summers, ready to pick up with children they are continuing with or getting to know new children.  Hope, Faith,

Patience. Just like children, teachers learn at different paces.  And hopefully are just as excited to begin the process.

watercolor abstract
watercolor on watercolor paper
8/2011

That is how I feel.  Ready to begin the process of getting to know new children, new parents, new teachers.  To begin new curriculum, engage in joyful and meaningful interactions with children beginning the process of school learning.

Watch some football, college ball, pull out my long sleeved t-shirts, watch the trees change colors, watch the day gets a little shorter, watch the little children growing, watch the grownups growing. 

Fall.  We are beginning a new journey.  Fall promises new beginnings, revisiting experiences past.  I can’t exactly watch myself grow but I hope I am as well.