Open Love Song for Fellow Scorpios

I realize your birthday must have come and gone just like mine, but while I know we share a sun sign I have no idea of your day. I wonder if like myself you enjoy the crisp clear autumn days more than any other season. It must be the melancholy in my soul, the restless brooding part of me that seems most at home when summer starts winding down. The bright warm days, as lovely as they may be, never seem trustworthy, like the long stemmed red rose that every woman but myself finds romantic. For me they seem insincere, almost artificial, and they fade so quickly. I am most happy with a child's bouquet, field flowers gathered from the meadows, the delightful ones that most people call weeds and try to root out of their formal beds. They grow for their own reasons, not for any gardener's pleasure, and no matter how he tries to eliminate them, next year they are back, tough and resilient and almost accidently beautiful. 

It's the time of year my husband starts complaining about the leaves, the ones he loved so much when they pushed tiny heads of fuzzy green into the world a few months back, as adorable as kittens. Now they are predictably demanding, but he grumbles about, attempting to engage me in conversations about the lawn mower, the constantly full gutters, even the neighbor's leaves that have the audacity to blow over before all the ones on our yard are vanquished. It's a thankless task, especially with the puzzling oak species in our yard. Stately and green in summer, the brown leaves seem to cling for dear life on into deep winter, yet somehow the ground remains covered with their russet pattens until finally snow eliminates the problem. 

This year we went straight from shirtsleeves to winter coats overnight, a common version of fall in Virginia. I am holding out little hope for a lovely indian summer with those cool bright charmed moments that come and go between the heartbeats of the seasons. Instead I pull out my winter coats, don that houndstooth scarf I love, and make one last search for my leather gloves. As organized as I am about other items, gloves get tucked into odd places and often don't reappear until I have purchased a new pair, or sometimes not at all. 

But fall is a time of resignation, for coming to terms with temporal joys, things lost and things barely remembered. In my heart of hearts I never expect anything good to last, but no one who knows me would consider me a pessimist. I take in life with all the gusto and passion in my soul, racing against the time when these sensual pleasure will be only a memory. Having spent my youth worrying about looking foolish, I am free in my middle years to be place foolishness in it's proper prospective. Winter comes inevitably, but now, for today, when the music plays I will dance. I will toss my arms in the air and sing along while they play. I will see you standing there watching and I will beg you to join me. Even though I know it is the last song of the evening I will still mean it when I cry, “More, more, more.”