The first taste of autumn

It wasn’t anything special. I always find myself eating dinner for breakfast. Chili, pasta, quesadillas, roast chicken, they were all more common than yogurt and cereal. Sometimes I eat eggs for breakfast, but I’m just as likely to have them for lunch, as well. It’s true, I drink coffee at breakfast, but I drink coffee consistently throughout the day, until dinner.

It was leftover pot roast with mashed potatoes and a wine gravy, and while that sounds fancy, it was actually Frankensteined from several different meals; the first time these pieces had met was after being lazily scooped onto my plate, seconds before being put in the microwave.

But around the table, the three of us sat. And it was fall. It had been summer for so long. But now there was a nip in the air that made hot coffee feel right. There was a smell of leaves outside that made the gravy fit perfectly.

Even Daniel’s cold set the scene of autumn. A cold during the summer is something to be sad about. A cold during the first chill of fall is almost obligatory. The day before was spent in blankets on the ground, sleeping as the winds blew.

The apple juice in his cup became cider. The leftovers on my plate became a small feast. The watermelon on the counter stuck out for the first time in months. The cinnamon roll candle I’d bought weeks before from the closing store by our house had always smelled good, but for the first time, it smelled right.

The wind blew outside, the sun took its time to rise, and everything I’d been eating finally fell into place as the first taste of autumn.