Nicole feels

I miss fall in Missouri.

Falls in Missouri were always long. Indian summer days but cool - even cold - crisp nights. There is that smell in the air that I struggle to describe...

Leaves burning, bright yellow mums, lingering rain, new pencils, eraser shavings, warm vinyl seats on a school bus, pumpkin seeds baking, sunshine on my cat's back as she basks in the autumn rays...all intertwined and mixed up like smoke tendrils rising slowly from a soon-to-be-sleeping campside fire.

I hope Fall simply comes later here.

It seems odd to be vaguely homesick for a place where I never felt fully at home.

Perhaps it was those pictures found in a stamped envelope, an all familiar girlish writing sprawled across the milky white front, delivered on a day too much like summer when it is supposed to be fall.

Perhaps it is remembering those football gatherings, navy and gold jerseys abounding while chips and dips were devoured as "the moms" tried to decide what might be good for dinner (Chinese take-out usually winning out over anything else).

As much as I say I never felt totally "at home" there, it was home. For eight years.

Home is where your heart is. And this morning, my heart has chosen to linger a little while in a Missouri Autumn.