Autumn Glory

I love the fall. Even after a bajillion years living in Southern California, I still look forward to this time of year and what it represents. I remember the crispness in the air and that invigorating smell of autumn mornings. This year I’m giving in and am heading “home” to Virginia/Maryland at the end of October. My best friend and I plan on touring Skyline Drive. I also hope to make it down to my college, The College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, VA, for my fifteenth college reunion. What the hey hey??? I am appalled that it’s been that long. I also just got a request to join an online group planning my twentieth high school reunion. Really? I don’t know how I got invited. I didn’t even graduate. That’s right! I left high school after 11^th grade by taking the high school proficiency test with a group of pregnant teens and drug addicts. An old soul, I was done with the high school social scene and my counselor suggested I get out and go to college early. Instead, I worked for a couple of months and then was an exchange student in Australia for a year. After that, I came back and got my general ed classes out of the way at a junior college and transferred to W&M. I graduated when I would have if I had followed the regular track. I remember kids at my school were a little shocked that I took the path I did. They thought it was a major mistake because it just wasn’t what you do. My client’s daughter, Rebecca, is a brilliant young woman. She decided to pull away from the pack and although she was accepted to Brown, is deferring to take a gap year. She’s traveling with a group called Thinking Beyond Borders and is going to India, South America, China, etc. working with different NGO’s on water issues, sustainable farming and the like. That’s what I call an education! And a brave young person stepping out and making her own unique way. I love it! You can check out her blog Mind the Gapper on my blog list.

Anyway, in the lull before my trip, I will ensconce myself in fall-ish activities, even though it still feels like summer here in Burbank. A friend told me about the Oak Glen apple orchards where you can pick your own apples and press your own cider. Sign me up! If you have an urge to join me, don’t be shy. Let me know and we can plan a Saturday adventure!

Already my mind is turned towards all the things I want to do with pumpkin this season. In case you think “pumpkin” is just a love moniker for a current object of my affections, you’re wrong. I mean actual pumpkin. We’re talking pumpkin soup, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin muffins. I even love the word “pumpkin”. Raise your eyebrows when you say it and grin real big. “Pumpkin!!!” You’ll look creepy, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

I also find myself reading more in the fall. I had three books going, but I’m down to two now. I just finished Beneath the Sky, a fictionalized tale about the building of the Taj Mahal. Now I’m onto Tony Horwitz bestseller Confederates in the Attic. It’s his travelogue of a trip through the South interviewing southerners about the Civil War. The other book is The Voice of Jesus, which deals with ways to discern God’s leading in your life. Part of me just wants a leaflet with bullet points that tells me exactly what to do instead of stretching the information out over 260 pages. What’s everyone else reading these days? I always appreciate good recommendations. I used to mainly read fiction, but now I connect more with true stories. Even with movies – I am more drawn to documentaries and films at least based on something that really happened. I wonder if it’s because I feel like I’m actually learning something and if I read/watch something that’s entirely fictional, somehow I think that it’s not productive? I don’t know. Trying to figure myself out.