October

Oh precious October, you are here, the most welcome of months.  I want to cherish each day, yet I know you'll slip by, unlike the relentless heat of July and August which lingers long into September.

I'm always waiting and watching for you, yet you surprise me every year. I look up from my hurry-scurry schedule and leaves have begun their seasonal change of clothes. The light has a different slant. The sun comes in my kitchen window, blindingly bouncing off the cars in the driveway and I can't sit at the table, it's so bright.

Gentle breezes, cooling, refreshing breezes blow in my window. I crunch on leaves that skitter-skatter down the sidewalk. So do my tires, as the dancing leaves skip into the street where they'll have much more room for their ballet.

Oh, the colors. The bright yellow of the quivering-shivering aspen, the gentle gold of an ancient oak. 

Then there are the dancing lady trees who give us the best of three worlds, and have yellowish tinted leaves as their petticoat, then the first, almost transparent layer of their dress is golden, giving way to the scarlett-burgundy last layer. If it's still, you can't see the underclothes, but when the wind whips by in a whirl, you get a peek. She shares her secret, as she twirls with the breeze in a cotillion of her own.

Bushes burn, catching autumn slowly as the redness spreads until the entire shrub is shrouded in fire-engine red. You can watch that color spread each day, if you're looking.

And oh do I look. I roll my windows down to catch every breeze. I gawk at the parade before me. I cast my gaze towards the mountains and watch the aspen slowly emerge from the pines. Little rivers of yellow flow slowly down the mountain, until I don't have to drive very far at all to catch the show, this splendid October show.

~Tina, savoring the season