“It sounds like it smells,” I sign, then wave my hands around as if to stir up the fall scents around us.

“Explain,” Tara signs with a smile.

“You know in the morning, when the air starts to feel crisper. Like, hmmm, like there is a sharpness to the air. And it smells a little damp, but not hot damp, cool damp?”

“Yeah…” she signs slowly, skeptically.

“Well it sounds like that.” Pausing, grab a fallen yellow leaf from the ground. “Hold this,” I sign as I pass it to her.

“Feel how it’s not soft like it would be when it’s on the tree and green? Now smell it. It smells like dirt or soil, but not as much like a leaf?”

Tara nods, turning the leaf over in her hand.

“And it’s crispy,” I continue, “now you’re going to squeeze it and when you do, feel how it srunches and snaps.” I instruct.

“Now times that by all these leaves,” I sign, referring to the covered ground, “and that is what it sounds like. Crisp, just like the fall air.”

She closes her fingers around the leaf, feeling it crunch on her fingertips. She lifts her eyes to me, bright with understanding, and smiles.