My mocha has long since been gone, the powder and syrup likely settled in a gooey mess of scrumptious at the bottom of the paper cup. Outside, my lettuce is solid, traces of our first snow still weighing down the leaves. It will not get the chance to be begrudgingly eaten by my three young ones. Don’t worry kids, the grocery store stocks it all year.

It is date night. That blessed of all nights when we scoot off everyone in our family who isn’t married to grandparents who will sugar them senseless and let them stay up until they’re hooting like owls. The coziness of the cold day makes me want to cuddle up with a movie. That’s where the coffee and the classic You’ve Got Mail come in. I know my husband loves me because he’s agreed to watch it with me.

Nora Ephron’s quirky, whimsical, graceful script carries us through four seasons as Tom Hanks’ eye rolling makes us laugh and I study the way Meg Ryan’s masculine walk is perfectly charming for this movie.
“What’s your favorite season?” I’ve been asked the question several times recently and I always say the same thing. “The next one.” I like the change. Cold is nice until it starts to warm up. Hot is perfect until it cools down.

By the climax of the story it is spring and I suddenly declare, “Oh, I love spring.” If I am absolutely forced to settle on one, it will always be spring. It’s newness, life. You know, all those clichéd words that we say around Easter. It’s kinda true.
I’m drawn to the stark contrast of what’s happening beyond our living room window. Death. Fall is the process of the dying, slumbering of what was alive. And yet, the leaves are so brilliant before they go, the animals so full before they sleep. Did you know that the immense colors of fall leaves are there even in summer? Chlorophyll, so overpoweringly green, hides the yellows and oranges until it starts to fade. That’s when the show starts and the brilliant hues come forth.

I think when it’s my time to go and my smooth skin is sagging around my mouth, my richly brown hair is white, maybe my contact lense eyesight is only blackness or ability to walk sits with me in a wheelchair; when everything else has faded and I’m left only with the vibrance of who I truly am, I want someone to come paint my nails a fall red. I want all the years of journals I’ve filled to pile around me like raked leaves. They are the essence of the every day, authentic me. And I want my kids and grandkids to come…for a party. A last hurrah.
At the end, what remains and shines is the real us, and I hope I’m as breathtakingly beautiful as a fire-orange maple.