I find it a little happy, sad, and anticlimactic that it's finally autumn. 

In the thickest of the summer heat there is always that carrot dangled in front of us  –that mythical and ephemeral Xanadu of crisp mornings and windows wide open and falling leaves.  We are fortified by thoughts of mulled wine and cider and giant orange orbs greeting passers-by from our doorstep and the first whiffs or wood-burning stoves and the first tickles of our sweaters (which in our mind never pill and are always cashmere) as we pull them over our eager-to-be-cold bodies.

Well, okay, and when I say "we" I definitely mean me– because while I have grown very fond of warm weather, I always long to return to that which I know growing up high up in the mountains.

But then the reality of those days hits, and one day is too cold and the next is too warm, and the mosquitoes haven't died yet and seek bloody revenge to protect their doomed spawn, and the trees look more dead or dying than actually going through their beautiful change; somewhat like the man who might have imagined his hair would turn a dashing Mark Harmon salt-and-pepper luxuriant mane but instead either ended up staring at a Jason Alexander-esque pate or  –even worse– into the Grecian formula'ed tresses of a Pat O'Brien (sorry about getting fired, buddy). 

The reality always lies somewhere in between, which is comforting but unsettling all the same: we want change but we fear it and sometimes that change for which we long and which we idolize or idealize does not quite live up to those imaginary, perfect expectations.

The mornings have been brilliant blue and clear, mosquitoes be damned.  I'm sure these cold-resistant mosquitoes are self-congratulatory in
their extended survival –their happy development after 30 million
years of getting killed off unceremoniously, no doubt.  And despite the haze, there is still a crisp bite.  Apples and pumpkin pie in the event horizon make these days even more cheerful, even if in their ordinariness sometimes they fall flat, just because they are all "today."

But truly, the most important part of this metamorphosis is to make it out the other side alive.  Happiness, health, or picture-perfect sweaters optional. 

Mental note: take lots of vitamin C.