Sounds Like Fall

This morning it was 67 degrees for a one brief, shining moment. It's the time of year when summer lets you know it's winding down; I get excited just imagining long sleeves, hot cider, gorgeous leaves and the "fresh start" that fall brings.

It brings to mind a favorite lyric:

"When autumn comes, it doesn't ask; it just walks in where it left you last. You never know when it starts until there's fog inside the glass around your summer heart."

-John Mayer, Something's Missing

In fact, that whole album sounds like fall to me. It came out ages ago, when I was starting fresh in my hometown - this time as an "grown up," sharing a precious little house and starting classes with a roomful of strangers.

It sounds like figuring out what it meant to live somewhere besides Clemson and slowly beginning to understand what it meant to be an adult.

When I hear it, I think of driving with the windows down through Five Points, wearing new "grad school clothes" and Rainbows (it's still hot in Columbia), wondering what the next few years would bring.

The answer? Lots of change. I'm glad I didn't know it then, and I'm glad every last change came to pass.

Call it nostalgia, but John Mayer's Heavier Things is in heavy rotation this week, an audio time capsule bringing me back to autumns past.

I'm pulling out my orange (and purple!) and preparing for fall, humming all the while. I'm ready to hear the crunch of leaves, the song that shakes the Southland and the silence once our air conditioning doesn't need to hum constantly.

What sounds like fall to you?