A-U-T-U-M-N

When I was younger, the only thing that I knew about Autumn was that I couldn't spell it. At least not until my Dad taught me a rhyme to do so: AU-TU-MN Autumn.

Now that I'm older I realise that Autumn is the season with the greatest appeal to every one of the five senses.

• You can feel Autumn in the nippy wind that blows early in the morning. The one that you can't brave without a jersey or jacket on. Preferably woolen, so that you can feel the texture against your skin and the way it protects and comforts you from the outside elements.
• You can see Autumn in the multitude of colours that the wind picks up and swirls around you in a blur so colourful that it makes any rainbow jealous. While the pale blue-grey sky lays like an artists background making the colours appear even fresher and brighter.
• You can smell Autumn in the fresh clean cool air that seems to bring with it a wholeness and homeliness. You can almost taste cinnamon, freshly cut wood and spices in the wind.
• You can hear Autumn in the sounds of silence. And the tread of feet down a pathway, and over crunchy leaves just being raked away into a pile, so that you can jump in it with your scarf wound tightly around your neck.
• You can taste Autumn in the way it makes you hunger for peace and a sense of new beggining. A time when everything and anyone has a chance to start anew, and let go of the past and what belongs to it.

Now I realise that Autumn is the season that has the greatest significance in our lives, because it is the season that can be related to most easily, and be understood because of its relation to human nature.

Yes, I am trluy glad that Autumn is here now. And so with the words out of 'You've got mail' "I wish a could give you all a bunch of freshly sharpened pencils", and wish you a happy Autumn.

Not just a name

You know how it is when you meet new people?
They always point, with blank looks on their faces, at you, while they are trying to introduce you to some distant friend of theirs. And ask the dreaded question "And you are...?"

well how on earth do you even go about answering a question like that? Yes I know that they simply want my name.

But is my name really who I am?
Of course not...

Those two (or three words if you're really lucky) have almost nothing in common with you, except the fact that your parents gave them to you when you were so tiny you couldn't possibly protest. If you could you probably wouldn't have let them name you that. Especially since that name describes absolutely nothing about who you are as a person.

***

My dad and mom had bought a huge name book, solely for the purpose of having nine glorious months to read through it languidly and choose a name that they thought would fit best.

Unfortunately as everyone knows, when you have too long a period of time to accomplish something you usually put it off till the very last minute.

So there sat my dad, just a week before I was due, reading the name book. He had accomplished the feat of reaching the very far off letters of 'An' and happened upon the name 'Anastasia'. So he looks up to my mom and says, "What do you think of Stacey?" and so it was to be. I was given the name Stacey.

***

Although I am a Stacey, and one of millions I can assure you, and have the name with the greatest number of different ways to spell it, (21 different and accepted ways to be exact) that

it says almost nothing about me as a person. I could be anyone, boy or girl, old or young, any multitude of races and religions. And yet I am just me.

When I think of myself and who I am, I never think of myself as just a name. Not when the name is not quite so diverse and rich enough to tell the person who asked the question exactly who I am.

But I will still answer their question with the same reply everytime; "Stacey", and let them find out for themselves who I really am.