The rains in the Pacific Northwest bring with them a stillness.  Contemplative, peaceful, and melancholy as the last of the leaves say farewell to their season.  The world is going to sleep; into hibernation; into their homes.  The children go inside to read, play legos, do their homework, kill time on screens, and argue inside their confinements. Some urban gardeners cover up their raised beds.  The sun hides behind the clouds and I steal my last opportunities of the fall season to capture the colors, knowing that the restful gray will soon be most of what we see for a few months.  The excitement of the Spring and Summer days makes way for cozy days of pajamas and hot chocolate, sitting by the fire, waiting for windows of sunshine, for the hibernation to pass.

I am finding myself slowing down, and feeling a little sad to see the leaves go.  Little deaths, waiting for the rebirth.

Fall and Spring are my favorite seasons. Times of change, renewal, death, and also the times I feel most alive and wanting to appreciate, exist, live, and experience it.  It is not hot or cold during these seasons.  I do not have to think about the temperature.  It does not oppress in one way or the other.  I hate to see the season’s end and already anticipate Spring.

I feel like I am in my first year of experiencing what I can do with photography on a whole new level and can live each season in a new way this year as I capture it in ways I have never been able to do before.  I think that in the Winter there will also be unexpected experiences with this art I have yet to explore.

I don’t think I am ready to go to sleep, but to keep living through the seasons in this new way; seeing things again refreshed with awakened eyes.  The world may be going to sleep, but I am not.  Not yet, I am just waking up.