Today it feels like Fall. Misty-rainy and overcast hoody weather. We traipsed off to school and back without the usual drenched-clothes get-me-to-the-shower-asap feeling as soon as I got home. After my appointment today I ran in for a Starbucks treat and oh so appropriately Pumpkin Spice Lattes made their yearly debut this week. Maybe it seems trifling or silly, but it awoke so many deep emotions in me I had to go to the car and listen to the rain and cry...

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are the Starbucks in Idaho Springs on the way to or the way home from the mountains. Aspens in their full glory in September. Snow scenting the air in October. Crazy roads in November and December. Windshield time and holding hands and life-changing conversations.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are Scott’s annual Fall Mix. Playing on Saturday mornings and in the car and weaving its way into an anthem for the coming year.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are Rob gutting pumpkins on our back porch at the condo. Chili in the crockpot and gluten free pumpkin bars in the oven. Everything set up for the annual pumpkin carving extravaganza.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are Race for the Cure with my sisters. Coming around the bend at Invesco Field and seeing thousands of women ahead and thousands stretched out behind. The pink shirted survivors dotted here and there and the bib on my back commemorating my own mom’s victory over breast cancer. 

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are finding out my gran died in the Jardins des Tuileries outside of the Louvre in Paris. A train home to London to discover our car stolen and our house ransacked. A flight to the US alone with two little boys and my sisters meeting me at the airport with just the right treat to cheer me up.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are rainy London days feeling homesick for Colorado and the Portobello Road Starbucks barista’s indignant exclamation of “Ew! No!” when I asked if they maybe? possibly? carried Pumpkin Spice flavoring in the UK.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are the Colorado barista who wouldn’t sell Scotty any Pumpkin Spice syrup, but gave him a cup of it for free which he poured into a rubbermaid container and duck-taped close. It made it all the way to London without spilling and made my day!

But this year it was something different. The quintessential ‘Colorado Fall’ thing became an amalgamation of homesickness...a little puddle of sadness and loneliness in the Starbucks parking lot. The grey rain making me positively ache for England. For wellies and romps in the woods with Kelly. For pub walks with the gang. For cups of tea in Loulou’s living room and trips to London with umbrellas in tow. But then there was the crisp weather and pumpkin yumminess making me look very much forward to a Colorado Fall. The kind of Fall I’ve been pining for the last three years. To golden Aspens and hoodies and pumpkin carving and the fall mix. Homesick. For all of it. All because of a Pumpkin Spice Latte.

How about you? What makes you wax nostalgic?