The Fall

 As I've noted before, Fall is without question my favorite season of the year. This has always been true, though I suspect that, when I was younger, the fact that my birthday is in October might have played a role in this. Nowadays, I find it’s more a consequence of the cooler weather – I’ve never been fond of heat and humidity, despite growing up in the Baltimore area – and the vibrant colors of the leaves. I look forward to seeing them start to turn in September. It’s one of Nature’s most beautiful displays, a yearly pageant that transforms even familiar streets and landscapes into places of wonder. The reds, oranges, and yellows mingle in shifting patterns and I often catch myself lingering on walks or staring out the window longer than I intend just to take it in.

Along with the colors comes the crispness of the air, the subtle smell of woodsmoke, and that hushed anticipation before the onset of Winter. Fall feels like both an ending and a beginning, a reminder of time’s passage, yet also of its cycles. It never fails to lift my spirits and sharpen my thoughts, which is why, year after year, it remains the season I cherish most.

The older I get, the more Fall takes on a new weight. The turning of the leaves is not just beautiful; it is also a reminder of impermanence. Those brilliant colors I love so much exist only because the trees are preparing for Winter’s barrenness. Their beauty is inseparable from their decline. That duality has become harder to ignore with each passing year, not because it depresses me, but because it feels increasingly familiar.

I notice my own changes. There are the small, physical reminders – a few more creaks in the body than there used to be – but also the larger ones, like the deaths of friends and family, the slow realization that there are fewer years ahead than behind. Like Fall itself, this is simultaneously melancholy and strangely reassuring. The season feels like a mirror of my inner life, a yearly confirmation that endings are natural, inevitable, and not without their own beauty.

I feel this most keenly in my roleplaying. The House of Worms campaign, which I once seriously imagined might go on forever, is now drawing to a close. Indeed, its end may come as early as this week. Characters who once lived vividly in weekly sessions will soon exist only in memory, stories recounted later or preserved in old notes. There’s a bittersweetness in realizing that even my longest-running campaign is subject to the same fate as all the others. But then, isn’t that part of what makes them precious?

If campaigns never ended, if characters never retired or died, would we hold their adventures in the same regard? I increasingly doubt it. It is precisely because they do end that we remember them with fondness. Their impermanence is what gives them weight. The knowledge that we only get so many sessions together makes each one feel more valuable.

The same is true of writing. Projects that once consumed me eventually reach their conclusion, whether by being finished, abandoned, or transformed into something else. For a long time, I resisted this reality. I held on to drafts and half-formed ideas as if they could be made immortal through sheer persistence. Letting go felt like failure. Now, though, I see it differently. Letting go is its own discipline and every ending clears space for something new. The cycle continues, just as surely as Fall gives way to Winter and then to Spring again.

What strikes me most is that endings, whether in life, roleplaying, or writing, are not failures. They are simply part of the pattern. Recognizing this has changed how I approach my creative work. I don't worry about whether a campaign will last or whether a project will ever be finished in some definitive sense. Instead, I try to enjoy the process, knowing that all things, however beloved, eventually end. Far from diminishing their value, this makes the time spent with them more meaningful.

That's why Fall has become more than just my favorite season. It’s also become a yearly reminder that beauty and impermanence are intertwined, that endings are inseparable from beginnings, and that what matters most is what we do while the colorful leaves still cling to the branches.