Perfect lack of storm

October has been so sweet. All that sun, all that glorious color. Everything has to come together just right to create such a season. Frost, but not too much, rain enough for healthy color, but not so much as to strip the trees. Snow and wind have to bide their time, too. A perfect lack of storm, one might say. You want to just walk along and kick the leaves a little, head full of nothing.

Such a contrast with the wider world—the bellicose campaign and the deep unease of financial freefall. But then fall has always been the season of cognitive dissonance. You want to revel in it, suck the last beauty from the season's marrow, but know in your own bones how soon the snow will fly. The geese fly, too. Time to bunker up and hunker down, time for the den and the long uneasy watch 'til spring. Snowbird time; get-out-of-Dodge time. Still, the leaves are lambent in the slant afternoon light. Give them their moment while it lasts.