Fall

Last night was the first night of the fall season that I had to sleep under all of the covers on my bed. This is always one of my favorite nights of the year.

There are lots of covers on my bed: the top sheet, a lightweight blanket, a quilt, a weighted blanket. On top of all that goes a fleece blanket which is not so much a cover for me, but a comfort object for the cat which is twists up and moves around as he pleases. From late spring through the summer and into early fall, it is too warm in my apartment to sleep under the covers. During those months I tend to sleep under just the weighted blanket or sleep under no blankets at all. (Although I do always have some type of blanket covering at least my feet even on the hottest of nights. This stems from a deep seated fear that any evil that befalls me during the night, be it a visit from a murderer, a Nazi, or Satan himself, will start with an attack on my feet so that I cannot get away.)

Last night with the window open it was downright chilly in my room, just as I like it. Bundled in my pajamas of yoga pants, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt, I thrilled at crawling under all of the covers knowing that I would be snug enough to stay warm through the night, but not so warm that I would wake up sweaty. This, to me, is the greatest type of sleeping weather and one of the primary reasons that I love fall.

Iliza Shlesinger is one of my favorite comedians. In one of her specials on Netflix called Freezing Hot, she has a lengthy bit about how all girls are required to love fall. It is a basic requirement to earn your girl card: must love fall.

It feels very basic white girl of me to admit it, but I really do love fall the most of all the seasons. Yes, the colors of the season are unbeatable. Yes, I enjoy pumpkin flavored things. I really enjoy when it’s finally chilly enough to wear sweatshirts around the clock. Fall is the season where the holidays begin: Halloween, Thanksgiving, even Christmas starts in the fall. All of these things are grand and I love them, but the real reasons behind my love of the season are experiences - moments and memories and feelings I’ve been trying to get back since the first time I experienced them.

There is one Halloween in particular that I remember. I was probably five or six years old at the time, young enough that my sister and I weren’t yet spending Halloween trick or treating with groups of friends, but were still going around together with our parents. Our mom took us over to the town of Oldwick where we knew some people from church and where there was a long street of houses that would make for good trick or treating. I don’t remember my costume or my sister’s either, but I know that it was dark and chilly and just scary enough to be thrilling rather than truly terrifying to my young self. Walking up each pathway, crunching through leaves to the front doors, ringing the bell, saying “Trick or Treat!” (speaking to strangers was the scariest part to me, if I’m honest), and then running back to our mom with our haul of candy. That night remains one of the best Halloween memories, one I remember when I’m out on a chilly fall evening.

Later in middle or high school I remember going to the Haunted Mill in Clinton. Every year in October the Red Mill Museum is turned into a giant haunted house, complete with a haunted hayride. For those of us who grew up in Clinton Township it was the big thing to do in the month of October. The mill would be so thoroughly decorated that it was unrecognizable from the place we all went on field trips as children. It was scary enough in the moment, but not so scary that it would keep you up at night afterwards, a perfect haunted house. But the best part of the experience for me was waiting in line.

Going to the Haunted Mill was one of the first experiences of freedom from parental supervision that I recall. My friends and I were dropped off in town, given a time and location to meet the designated pick up parent, and then left to our own devices until that time. We got our tickets and went to stand in line that went almost all the way across the bridge that stands across the South Branch of the Raritan River between the Red Mill and the Stone Mill. The sky was dark, it was chilly and we were bundled in our sweatshirts (because we were too cool to wear jackets), standing on this bridge with nothing to do but wait. We talked and joked and had a really good time considering how bored we could have been. Even though these were the friends that I spent most of my time with at school and during free time, somehow waiting on a bridge with them was a whole new perspective into our friendships. We had just enough adrenaline pumping in anticipation of the jump scares coming our way and I think we all felt on the brink of adventure, like the hobbits setting out at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings.

There are so many other moments that happened in the fall that add to my love of the season. Thanksgivings spent on the relatively deserted Jersey Shore, watching postseason baseball, fall plays in high school where we huddled around space heaters, even walking home from the bus stop was charming in the fall sheltered by a canopy of multicolored leaves. Burning candles with lovely fall scents, leaving the windows open to let that crisp chill into the house, and then snuggling up with an animal or a willing human to stay warm. Making a big pot of soup and living off it for the next week. Snuggling in a comfy chair with a book and a big mug of coffee. These are feelings I treasure and chase and aim to replicate each year as the seasons change.

The predicted high temperature for today is 61 degrees, sweater weather for sure. My plans for the day involve blankets, books, coffee, a craft project or two, and definitely some soup. I will light my “Autumn on the Lake” candle, which has a kind of generic fall scent. I will see if I can get the cat to snuggle up next to me. And I will look forward to going to bed tonight under a big pile of blankets and waking up tomorrow not wanting to leave my warm, cozy nest.

Fall makes everything cozier, it makes home feel more home-y. In this once instance I am okay with being termed a basic white girl. It’s worth it so long as I get to wear a sweatshirt.