Like sparkling diamonds

The light of a fall day has a different feel to it. Maybe it's the lower humidity, but everything seems to have greater clarity. The sky appears bluer and the water sparkles as if a million diamonds were strewn on it.

Yesterday, my wife made a pot of chili. It isn't cold here yet. Fall doesn't come to the Lowcountry until November. But it's the feel of something different in the air, as if I'm waiting in anticipation.

The shrubs and trees know the seasons. Leaves are already losing their green and beginning to look worn and darker. The sycamores are the first to change here. Their plate like leaves turn brown before others. The beauty berry bushes are putting on a show with their purple fruit. Acorns are beginning to drop from the oak trees. The last tomato plants have been pulled from the garden and the fall plants are in the ground.

I'm still wearing tee shirts but have worn a pair of blue jeans for the first time all summer. I know that soon enough the flannel shirts will come out. But I will still won't put away the summer clothes until I'm sure that the back of summer is broken.

In the morning, I want to stay in bed burrowed under the light coverlet, smelling the warmth of my love sleeping next to me. But I get up, make coffee, watch the sun come up through the trees, and let the dogs out for a romp. They are bursting with energy, liking the cool mornings.

My walks on the beach are filled with more energy. The tide has been high for the past few days, as it inundates the marsh grass and glistens against the green and gold hues. The fiddler crabs scurry about, but I am sure that they know in their simple way that a change is coming.

Fall is my favorite season. It is a time of nostalgia, a time when I feel myself turning inward, reflecting just as the sunlight sparkles like diamonds on the water.