What fall gives and takes away...

Fall is beautiful but it can feel somber too. I always want to travel in the fall, it's a restlessness that comes every year. I don't know if I ever felt it beforeI read The Hobbit and in particular reading Bilbo's poem about the road calling him-but I now connect that with fall, it seems intertwined with the longing to leave where I am, and go...who knows where? The colorful leaves last a week or two and then the trees are barren, and sometimes kind of ugly. It depends on what is left, beautiful branches and trunk, or not so pretty. It's like people. You really get to know someone when you have been around them for a long period of time. All the covering of 'public persona' is gone, especially when you go through a stressful situation and see how they react and the words they use. You see the real people. I still love the shape of the trees, even the twisted ones with gnarled and stunted branches. The nasty ones I think are the ones with thorns,they are like the bitter, ugly personality some people cover with the 'leaves' they think hide their difficult attitudes, their greediness, their self-centeredness. Fall is coming, and no one will be able to hide what they are. Get ready. Change, drop those leaves, be beautiful anyway.