Fall is here: The crunch of leaves has begun

The crunch of leaves under our feet has begun and will only grow crunchier.

“The greatest surprise in life to me is the brevity of life,” Billy Graham said. Given life’s brevity, I like to be “all in” on appreciating each season as it rolls around – and I suggest you consider doing the same.

Don’t go about your daily tasks and wake up one morning, jarred to find snow on your doorstep as you wonder “What happened to fall?”

“Autumn arrived last night,” Renee Vajko Srch wrote, “lugging its trappings of hot chocolate, soft warm sweaters, bright orange pumpkins and bold hues of copper, amber, gold and red.”

In coming weeks, a drive in the country will verify that last part: looking out over our treasured Ozark hills, a golden swath will soon be swung thither and yon like magic dust. The flaming red of roadside sumac will compete for admiration.

Go for a drive or hike before the leaves drop because after they do you will find yourself looking at bare branches for five months. Buy a pumpkin and carve it, even if you haven’t done so in decades. Decorate your front porch with autumn’s bounty.

Remember the concept “gather ye rosebuds while ye may” and apply it to the remaining weeks of autumn.

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers,” L. M. Montgomery wrote in “Anne of Green Gables.” Me too.

Part of October’s appeal may be that we are already peeking around the corner to November, and our mouths are watering.

The pairings of hot turkey with a dash of tart-sweet cranberries augmented by a cinnamony buttered sweet potato? Yum. Oh, and don’t forget the homemade apple pie ala mode or pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Aah.

Memories of Thanksgiving Past are often delightful too. I grew up in a rural community and a favorite flashback? Our church held a worship service right on Thanksgiving Day, and the altar area was decorated to the hilt.

The abundant décor was a community effort. The day before Thanksgiving, our family brought dried corn stalks and cobs. The Barthels delivered a bushel of fresh-picked Red Delicious apples from their orchards. Mrs. Wille lugged in a peck of Bartlett pears, while the Geidels provided a variety of colorful squashes. From the Ernsts came gourds in interesting shapes.

Our backyard proliferated with orange Japanese lanterns which Mom harvested and tied upside down on the sun porch to dry so they could be combined with sprays of wheat; these were also lovingly arranged to beautify the church.

The next morning we gathered to express our gratitude in song “Now thank we all our God with heart and hand and voices, Who wondrous things hath done in Whom this world rejoices.”

Whatever your memories, make new ones as you cherish the season, allowing the cool outdoor air to energize and even inspire you.

Let me share a few lines from a favorite poem of mine called “God’s World” by Edna St. Vincent Millay: “O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! Thy mists, that roll and rise! Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag and all but cry with color! . . . Lord, I do fear Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year; My soul is all but out of me – let fall No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.”

We most often think of spring as a time of new beginnings (and it is) but I like what F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in “The Great Gatsby”: “Life starts over when it gets crisp in the fall.” Think of the possibilities.