WF
MY TURN
TGIF Thank Goodness It’s Fall!
30 Washington FAMILY OCTOBER 2021
• The toll of the school bell
• The crunch of dried leaves
beneath my feet
• The coziness of warm boots and a
soft sweater
• The crack of a bat making contact
with a baseball
• The smell of smoke coming
out of chimneys
• The contrast of reds, yellows and
oranges against a blue sky
• The squeal of my children putting on
costumes for Halloween
• The joy on kids’ faces when I drop candy
into trick-or-treat bags
• The faint music of the marching band
from a not-so-distant high school
football game
• The squish of pumpkin between my
fingers as I carve a jack-o’-lantern
• The honks from geese flying south
• The thrill of scary stories and
haunted houses
And, of course, the smell and taste of a
pumpkin spiced latte. n
LATTE: RIMMA_BONDARENKO /ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS
TREESCAPE: LEMANNA/ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS
A pumpkin spice latte.

That’s the first thing that comes
to mind when someone says fall.

I picture myself at 20 years old, walking
across the quad of my college campus,
enjoying the smell in the air that can only be
described as crisp. The thought of fall makes
me long to go apple picking, and then to
bake something warm and gooey that sends
cinnamon wafting through the house.

There is something that excites me about fall
more than any other time of year. I don’t know
if it’s because I spent 12 years in Los Angeles,
where winter is preceded by summer and
then fire season, or that I’ve just been beaten
down by a decade of oppressively hot
summers in Maryland. While I’m
never in a rush for the cold
and darkness of winter, I
always look forward to
the hopeful feeling that
accompanies autumn. We
all go our separate ways
for the summer, but then
we come back together —
at work, in school, in our
communities. An opportunity
to start fresh.

After what we’ve all been through
in the past year and a half, however, it’s
hard to feel hopeful in this moment. At this
point, I’m starting to wonder if life will ever
look the way it did before COVID-19. So
many questions fly through my head: Will we
return to the customary American greeting of
shaking hands? Will French society go back
to its signature two-kiss greeting? Will our
children ever go into a public place without
a mask again?
To take my mind off the madness surrounding
the increased threat of the delta varient (not to
mention the deepening destruction of global
warming), I focus on fall. Through my senses, I
am reminded that there are still so many small
pleasures I can still enjoy this year — and for
many years to come. n
BY JACQUELINE RENFROW



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