Patchwork Quilt

My favorite part of the day is walking home from the train station. It's about a half-hour walk, through residential streets and across a park. This time of year, the whole way is carpeted with scarlet and orange maple leaves, and the trees lining the street are flaming, almost shimmering with color - gold and yellow and crimson and violet. It's gorgeous. It always makes me think of the Babes in the Wood fairytale where the forest birds cover up the lost children with a patchwork quilt of autumn leaves to keep them warm.

In a week, when the time changes, it will be too dark to walk home and I'll have to start taking the bus home (in the dark), which is kind of gloomy. And I'll miss the fresh air and exercise. The knowledge that my walks are almost over for the year makes them especially bittersweet.

But I can't complain... this has been the most lovely autumn in recent memory. We've had day after day of warm, 70-degree weather with blue skies and golden trees. Wearing short sleeves and racing through crunching autumn leaves is wonderful fun. When February is getting me down, I'll just have to remember how lucky we were to have this time.