Don't Leaf Me!

Here in Chicago, fall seems all too brief. The leaves have barely started changing colors before it's time to bust out ye olde winter coat and adjust to bare trees and dark afternoons. I've tried to make the most of those few glorious weeks of autumn, though. This has mostly involved the following: 

• trying out new and exciting foliage-heavy photoshoot locales
• wearing blazers as coats and ballet flats with my tights 
• pointing out every single gorgeous tree I see to Jeff and refusing to let up until he acknowledges how lovely they are.

 

I waited impatiently all throughout the (seemingly-endless) summer to wear this new-to-me 3/4-sleeved Havana Nights dress, and now the time has finally come! Given all of that anticipation, I thought I should celebrate its first outing with a special blog shoot among the leaves. It won't be long now until I'll be hiding my dresses under heavy layers, and wearing over-the-knee tights on top of tights just to keep my legs from freezing clean off. 

Even though Chicago, like Ned Stark, never lets you forget that Winter is Coming, I'm glad to live in a place that has distinct seasons after so many years in Los Angeles. In LA, it was hard to get much of a sense that time was passing, since every day was 75 degrees and sunny. While I've missed that perfect climate quite a bit over the last year and change, those unbroken years of perfect weather were a bit disorienting. A year has a natural rhythm made up of holidays, yearly events, and the waxing and waning of warmth and greenery, but palm trees don't lose their leaves.

This green and yellow were my favorite colors as a child.

Ok, I'll lay my cards on the table and be blunt instead of abstract: in LA, I never felt like the holiday season arrived because it never got cold. How am I supposed to feel like Christmas is coming if there's no snow and I'm able to walk around in shirtsleeves? This might seem like a silly thing to complain about, but it just goes to show you how much I love the holidays and that holiday feeling! Given how wedded I am to my routines and habits, it isn't too hard to understand why the holiday season, with all of its annual traditions, is basically paradise to me! 

Chilly weather, short days, and bare branches might seem bleak, but they give me a giant visual cue that the holidays are almost upon us! My dad always talks about seasonal memory (that sense you have in winter, for example, that the previous winter happened much more recently than the summer that just ended), and I truly think he's on to something. Those memories of driving around my hometown to see Christmas lights twinkling on snowy rooftops always feel so present when we set off for that year's light-peeping drive, after all.

Definitely trying to live up to Devinne's example in this shot!

While I can't wait to delve headlong into a month of watching sappy movies, exploring holiday craft fairs and markets, and singing along to every single Christmas song except 'Santa Baby' and 'Baby, It's Cold Outside" (<-- YUCK!!), I'm savoring the feeling of leaves crunching under my feet, and the last few weeks of relatively comfortable temperatures.

What's your favorite time of year?

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