Letter to a Summer Bully

Oh Texas.  Twenty years in and you still disappoint me every September.  I have slowly learned to calibrate my expectations of you.  I know that it will be hot the first day of school as well as the thirtieth day of school.  I know not to rush you with my needs for cooler weather because I only end up making you angry and you act like a hurt child and keep summer going through October.  I know.  But Texas, I forgot that you can be so cruel.  This year you gave me a little tease of autumn on the first calendar day of autumn and I thought this is it!  Sweater weather!  Open windows!  Fall is upon us with all of its glory!  But no. It was just you, playing with strings of my heart, giving us just one cooler day and then BOOM.  Here we are in the high 90's again and all I got was a cold. 

Please Texas.  We had a very nice summer and I thank you for that.  It was not until the end of August that I found myself so weary of sweating and tank tops and heat that I contemplated moving and fantasizing about wearing comfy pants again.  This is usually a June occurrence, so again, thank you.  But please, I need fall.  I need open windows at night and I need the smell of crisp air in the morning.  I need temperatures that dip into the 50's and don't get above 78.  I need the trees that do change color to start changing.  You know you only let them shine a day or two before they dump all over the ground.  I need to see all those resplendent reds, orange and yellows and not just in front of HEB with its anemic pumpkins and sad, wilting mums.  I need to take a walk through leaves and hear the crunch of them beneath my feet and smell the sweet decay that rises up.  Please, I would like my electric bill to go down for a month before the gas bill rises to take its place.  And I would really like to hold a cup of coffee and enjoy the warmth of it spreading through my hands rather than the sweat pouring down my face.

Not to call you out Texas, but Buffalo does fall WAY better than you.  Yep.  I hate to be the one to tell you, but Buffalo, NY has this fall thing down.  Glorious you could call it.  Autumnal splendor some would say.  Cool nights, warmish days.  People up there are reveling in the majestic colors of the trees already.  They are drinking their cider and crunching through their leaves while wearing their cozy clothes and not sweating.  Fall fests up there are enjoyable - a celebration of summer's end and the pause before the onslaught of winter.  Fall fests here are just more kettle corn and hot, sweaty people wondering why they thought calling it Fall Fest would make it seem more like autumn.

Glorious, right?

Oh Texas.  I have tried so hard all these years to explain, please listen this time.  Autumn is just so special to me.  It holds my birthday month, it reminds me of years playing field hockey, or the year I spent making donuts at the cider mill.  Yes, I know my complexion was a mess but that $4/hour was a princely sum.  Fall is football games and crisp nights and huge harvest moons taking up the sky.  It is walks at night and mugs of tea and perhaps a light blanket as you sit on the couch.  It gives you time to prepare for winter.  Not that winter here is especially cold or harsh, but fall is a time to get your crops in, tighten up the house, bake to warm up the kitchen and a time to get your mind right. 

Please Texas.  Please give us some fall before you throw us into winter.  We need that pause between seasons of two extremes.  You are starting to act like a bully Texas, and I just won't put up with it anymore.  Well, I will but I will pout and whine to all who listen and eventually you are going to get a bad name for yourself.  They might stop flying your flag as high and stop making kids pledge their allegiance to you, Texas, in schools.  C'mon Texas.  Do it.  All the cool states are doing it.  What's a little cooler weather between friends?  Bring on the fall Texas and I will open my windows and doors and publicly declare you the best, ever.  I promise.