Fall Colors

Yesterday I remembered why fall is my favorite season.  Driving home from work at dusk, the sun shone through the brilliant oranges, reds, and yellows of the leaves on the trees.  The green belt behind my school is alive with color.  In fact, it's hardly green at all right now!  Today I was determined to capture its magnificence in a photograph but missed my window, leaving just a few minutes too late to capture the light.  It is so easy to forget to stop and look at the beauty around us, even in as unlikely a place as an older suburban neighborhood in Sacramento.  This weekend I am determined to bask in all of fall's blazing colors before they slip away into the messy piles of rotting leaves that December brings.

I think that is the hardest thing about life, if you do not consciously stop to appreciate something, it will slip away before you realize it.  I guess that is the truth to the saying in my family of this too shall pass.  I think that we should add to the end that this too shall pass, whether you like it or not.

I know that I have said it before, but sometimes I wish that I could put life on pause and just stop and take it all in.  Fleeting, but beautiful, but hard, but worth it.  I know that each passing experience leads to another that has its own worth.  I just want to remember to actually stop and appreciate what is around me before it is gone.  A worthwhile sentiment for a month focused on gratitude, I suppose.