The air changed this week and with it brought Autumn, or Fall, as my honorary American self would call it. The blue sky signalling the promise of a warm Autumn day, while the cool morning air dosed me with a refreshing reminder of what makes this season so great.

Autumn in Australia has always been an enjoyable season: Easter, warm sunny days, and special occasions like mine and Craig’s wedding anniversary.

But apart from this, I never really got the beauty of Autumn. It just meant the weather was on its way to getting colder. Our trees don’t change their leaves and nature doesn’t change much, at least not obviously to our human eyes.

And then I moved to the top half of the world and I began to see why Autumn is such a wonderful season.

Did you know that leaves have the ability to set whole forests alight? The Fall air arrives with an invisible paint brush to splash   a few leaves here and there orange and before you know it the strokes get wider and deeper and the tree line is aflame with gold, brown, and red, burning it up so brightly until they eventually fall onto the ground below.

Autumn allows you to see the changes in nature and helps you become aware of how natural a process change is. I mean if the trees lose their leaves year after year and still remaining standing then doesn’t that mean that I can go through periods of loss, death and then regrowth again?

And be a thing of beauty as I progress through these changes?

Fall in America helped me to forget about the cold weather that was approaching, and I mean really cold weather; weather that would eventually bring ice and snow. You just don’t get that in Australia.

I could forget about Fall because Fall was fun! The most fun season of the year, even more than the beach days of summer. Fall brings with it celebration and festivals and lots of them.

Football starts, and with it comes tail-gate parties in car parks,  beers down the bar or barbies with your friends.  The days are toasty warm and the evenings call for the start of a fire to toast smores over. (You don’t know what you are missing with this Australia)

Witches, goblins, trick-or-treat, I never got Halloween until I lived in the States. And why would I really, it is an American holiday. I loved celebrating Halloweeen.

 

Dressing up Kalyra and trick-or-treating with friends in the local neighbourhood is so much fun. Homes are decorated in the most freakish manner, and residents sit on their porches waiting for their little goblin door knockers with candy and often a beer or wine for the grown up ghouls walking with them.

There is relaxed laughter and Southern hospitality wraps you up in warm jacket for the cool evening.

 

And then the adult fun begins. Dress ups and parties at a graveyard house with prizes for the best dressed, delicous food,  and an open bar that would rival any night club. Now that is what I am talking about.

Halloween soon turns to Thanksgiving, which I think is a way better holiday than Christmas. There is no commercial and materialistic crap that comes with Thanksgiving.  It is purely about being grateful for what you have in life and taking time to spend with those you are thankful for. You eat way too much, and probably drink the same, you watch football, talk and laugh. Thanksgiving is also the time for pumpkin pie, one of my favourite deserts of all time.

Before you know it the iciness of winter has arrived unnoticed. You only realize as you step out the door to go to your next Christmas party, and you stop to grab your scarf, beanies and gloves along the way.

 

Even though Autumn is now upon us in the Southern Hemisphere and none of those celebrations happen at this time of the year, I’ll always connect it to Fall and wish I was having Autumn in America.

It’s time for new Autumn celebrations now. Taking Kalyra to the Royal Easter Show and heading to Byron Bay for the Blues Fest and Easter celebration.

And of course there is the breeze that I can still appreciate, that chill Autumn wind that lets me know that change is a coming and that change is a good thing.