Autumn, Wrapped in Wonder: Doorstep Mummies, Eyeball Pasta, and a Cosmic Night in Crewe
Fall always sneaks up like a friendly ghost—one day the front door is plain, and the next it’s wrapped like a mummy, winking at passersby with googly eyes. This year our house leaned fully into the season. Pumpkins marched up the steps in a cheerful parade; some wore classic orange, others became characters. For a school project we painted a pumpkin squad: yellow minions with tiny overalls and candy-bright M&M faces. There’s something delightfully mischievous about watching familiar round pumpkins transform into storybook guests.
Inside, we tested a new party menu for the neighborhood Halloween get-together. I made my annual “eyeball pasta,” a bowl of spaghetti dotted with mozzarella “eyes” and olive “pupils,” swimming in tomato sauce. It’s equal parts spooky and silly—perfect fuel for a night of sugar-fueled tag and dance breaks on the driveway. The kids tried on their costumes so many times that the mirror started to expect a daily superhero. When trick-or-treating finally arrived, they took off down the sidewalk in a blur of capes and glitter, lanterns of porch lights leading the way as leaves skittered like confetti across the pavement.
Fall, for us, isn’t only about costumes and candy; it’s also about curiosity. We drove out to Crewe, rural Virginia, to visit friends at their farmhouse—wide sky, wind-ruffled fields, and a night so dark you can hear the stars. Their kind, boundlessly energetic dog appointed the kids as his personal outfield as we played catch under a sky turning copper to violet. When the sun dipped, the real show began: telescopes pointing toward Jupiter’s bands and the Moon’s tidy craters, microscopes revealed the lacework of leaves and the secret geometry of hair and rain water, and a WB “cosmic voyage” video took us from our backyard to the edges of the known universe in minutes.
Between door-step mummies and farmhouse constellations, this season felt like a warm quilt stitched with small rituals. The front door taught us that a bit of whimsy can welcome the whole street. The minion and M&M pumpkins reminded us that ordinary shapes can hold extraordinary personalities. A pot of eyeball pasta proved that the best party trick is laughter shared around a table. And Crewe showed us how wonder multiplies when you pair science with a dark sky and good friends.
I’ll pull these moments forward when the days get shorter still: the soft thud of a football against a mitt, the gleam of a telescope lens, the sound of kids whispering before they ring a doorbell, and the comfort of returning home to a house that smells like pumpkin spice. Fall is the season that lets us be playful and thoughtful at once—one foot in imagination, the other grounded in gratitude. As the leaves loosen their grip, I’m reminded to do the same: let go, lean into joy, and look up.
