Fall
It’s 95 degrees today. On the East Coast this would be considered an Indian Summer. In Los Angeles, it’s just another day.
You live here long enough, and you forget that seasons don’t just exist in Hollywood films. That in the rest of the world summer is over and Fall has begun. And it’s a shame, because I miss fall.
I miss the leaves changing. The crisp air. That feeling I used to get when I was a kid, and I played outside stacking leaves into giant piles so I could jump through them.
I miss the way the air tastes. That feeling I used to get when I walked through pumpkin patches till I found that perfect one that I could carve into a jack-o-lantern.
Sure, Los Angeles has warm apple cider, but it doesn’t seem to taste the same when you’re not actually cold.
The days don’t change. Nothing changes. Except me.
And maybe it’s not that I miss Fall the most. Maybe it’s just that I miss that yearly reminder, that once, a long time ago, I was just a kid.
Oh my goodness! Don’t let life put you under the big umbrella! Let me explain….
I went to the beach last weekend and I couldn’t stop watching some little kids play in the water. They were jumping in the ice cold waves with reckless abandon. They were digging in the sand, looking for anything that looked important or interesting or “cool”. They were tireless - the more they played, the more energy they had. Their parents, on the other hand, were sitting comfortably under a big umbrella. They looked tired. Maybe because they stopped playing years ago.
It’s not lost on me that every passing year drops another heaping dose of responsibility on our backs BUT somewhere between reckless abandon and sitting underneath the fat umbrella we all stopped playing! Somewhere in the middle of it all - in the middle of realizing that Santa doesn’t exist, that our parents wished we didn’t exist, that Suzie’s boobs don’t really exist, that Tom’s wife really does exist - somewhere in the middle of all that, we grew up and headed straight for the umbrella.
Einstein said that experiencing a feeling of wonder or awe is one of most important feelings we possess. That’s what kids do! They dig in the sand, with tremendous focus, in the hopes of discovering something different from themselves. Some little gem that inspires a sense of wonder and awe.
So rather than simply remembering that we were kids once, the challenge of adulthood is to keep a sense of play ignited in our hearts. And the beauty of adulthood is that once we find that gem in the sand, we appreciate it like no mere child ever could.