Tag: Fall Feels 2024

Fall Reads: The Fellowship of the Ring

The first volume of The Lord of the Rings is one of those books I associate with Fall, going all the way back to the first time I read it in middle school. Rather than writing a review of a book everyone’s already familiar with, today I decided to write up my memories of those Fall evenings spent exploring Middle Earth.

“In the Fall, I absolutely crave adventure, and there are few tales of adventure as good as this introduction to The Lord of the Rings. When the leaves are dropping, I know I can crack a window, make a mug of tea, and set off on a journey through Middle Earth the same way I did all those years ago.”

Golden Days

Here are a handful of photos from the past couple weeks, mostly from my morning hikes in a local park.

I take so many photos and I never share them with anyone. I rarely even look at them again, although it makes me happy when I do. For me, most of the joy comes from the routine: noticing something, quickly framing the subject, then snapping the photo and moving on. It’s a spontaneous pursuit, and one of the few things I can reliably do without over-thinking.

I think it might be good for me to share more of my photos. I’ll get to see them again, and so will you.

A deer stands alert in a sunny forest clearing, with trees and the ruins of a stone cabin in the background.
Downward view of my legs as I rest on a bench during a fall hike, with the leaf-strewn gravel path under my feet.
A fallen oak leaf with yellow, green, brown, and red coloration, sitting on the gray compacted soil of a hiking trail.
An adult eastern box turtle looking up amid grass, ivy, and leaf litter on the edge of a hiking trail.
A bunch of pink roses in various stages of bloom, ornamented by drops of rain.
In an otherwise blue sky, tall storm clouds rise over a September country landscape that includes a small garden plot, a split-wood fence, and a group of walnut trees in a dry lawn.

Fall Feels 2024

Every year, there’s a day in August when the weather is a bit cooler, the birds and cicadas are unexpectedly quiet, and the sunlight feels slightly less direct. Maybe a prematurely fallen leaf crunches underfoot, and the sound and smell of it remind me that Fall is coming. From that point on, something inside me starts to shift and adjust.

For some reason I just can’t help but anticipate the changing of the seasons. It’s not just Fall, either: I eagerly await the first snowflakes that melt as soon as they touch the ground, the first bright green tips of crocus leaves emerging from the soil, and the first lightning bugs blinking at dusk. I know I’m not alone in marking the changing seasons in this way, but sometimes I forget how important this cycle is to me. I’m an anxious person, but there is something very reassuring about the relentless rolling of the wheel of the year. Hope springs, hope falls. There is hope in every season, and the opportunity to reflect and prepare for what’s to come.

This year as I welcome the transition to Fall and everything that entails, I’d like to be a little more deliberate, and try harder to notice and appreciate all the little ways this season changes me. The transformation is so thorough, I can only describe it as magic. The food I crave, the activities I do, the books and music and movies I seek out — everything is changed for the better.

So this year, I’m going to do my best to document that transformation here, on my website. I’ll share some of the books I am drawn to re-read each Fall, the albums I return to, and the movies that give me that magical feeling. I’ll post some of the photos I take habitually as the light changes and the leaves fall.

I’m calling this thing I’m doing Fall Feels 2024. It will be a lot of work, but my hope is that it will deepen my appreciation for all the ways this magical time of year affects me. In that sense, I’m thinking of it as a kind of long-running ritual observance, a psychological spell that will multiply the power this season already holds over me. I’m not sure what it will look like when all is said and done, but I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride.