Fall

I was 6, maybe 7. Fall meant that the air was going to grow colder, that we could spend no more time in the pool that year. That the leaves were going to fall and that when it was sunny, the air was crisp. When it was cloudy, the air was damp and moist and frigid if you were outside early in the morning. I remember standing at the bus stop on the mornings, huddled in the jacket I had fought against wearing (but now was happy that my mom had made me put it on). I carried my back pack and lunch box, but didn't yet realize that school was my future for the next 16 years.

Fall meant that games of baseball in the street would be ending soon. Mornings at the bus stop would be bitter and the wind cutting. The green of the trees would be giving way to the gray of the street as the most dominant color of my neighborhood.

That fall I would learn to read.



I was 11. This fall was different for the first time in 5 years. The old house was gone, the old school was gone, and now the growing coldness felt more foreboding than it did familiar. The only thing that was the same for me was the sky on those early mornings ... it was still crystal clear blue, or various hues of gray, or sometimes lanced with white offset by golden sunshine. Every morning the bus arrived but took me somewhere far unlike the place I had come from.

My own feelings were different. Something was beginning to happen. This was the first time I had been challenged to rise again in a new place. And, that fall, I would meet the first teacher who told me I could do better. He told me I had to work hard now, improve, meet my potential.

That fall I would learn to write.



I was 14, and this was the fall that would forever change my life. The moments which define that fall for me were, for the first time, not at the bus stop. I vaguely remember those mornings, but far more telling for me were the evenings. There was always the same cutting wind from my youth across the field, the same white lanced with gold in the sky, and the same gradual transposition of orange from green, then gray and brown. But this fall was something new. Something that I truly loved.

I will never forget the vision of that first sunset. We rounded the corner to come down the hill into the stadium, me beside my best friend and surrounded by my friends, and there in front of us was the most perfect sunset that could have existed. A third of the sun was still above the horizon, the sky was a fiery red that ever so gradually gave way to orange, then beige, then blue, then a very distinct purple on the opposite horizon.

That fall I would learn to perform.


I was 18, and once again it was my first time in a new place. The fall that year was characterized by the sunrise I saw every morning. I would wake up at 6:30, stretch for half an hour, then jog down to the gym for a 3 mile run. Every morning on the way down, though, I'd stop at the top of the stairs and look down into the valley. Some parts of it were still in the dark, thanks to the mountains on the Eastern side. The rest of it was coming to life ever so slowly, being warmed and invigorated with the light that was falling silently.

Every single morning I would pause for that one perfect moment, amidst all the hope and fear that was inside me. My test would come later that fall- the test of my dream. Deep down I knew that each morning would bring me that much closer to my goal. Every mile I ran was one more ounce of strength my body would have when the time came. Every note I practiced was one more degree of proficiency that would set me above the rest. Looking down silently the whole time was the ever-present sky ... gray and muffled or white lanced with gold.

That fall I would test my limits.


This fall is the same as the previous three have been ... but I shall embrace it as what could possibly be the last one in this place. Next year- we'll see what the fall brings with it. I guarantee that wherever I am, whomever I am with, or whatever I'm doing ... the sky will be there.


Happy September.