Saturday, October 18, 2008

. nostalgia .


.. so with the dancing leaves and the light playing hide and seek with the clouds, i find myself falling back into piles of freshly raked memories of youth and candy corn and cold air inhaled on crisp pear picking mornings.

i google earthed my old home and noticed that the pear tree that lived in my back yard had been cut down. made me sad to see my old friend gone from the place where we had so many adventures. i would sit next to it and watch the leaves swirl in the breeze. they danced with the sky as the cardinal sang its song. my dog would bark at the squirrel hiding in its branches only to suddenly hear a THOP! usually, at a fairly significant velocity, a pear would come hurdling out at my canine companion. made me laugh every time. crazy squirrels!

ah.. girl scouts! we would head out to the apple orchard and eat more apples than i think we really picked. our afternoons would sometimes lead to horseback riding adventures and crazy folktales about ghosts in old abandon barns.. or the hitchhiking lady near the cemetery.. yep, gave me nightmares every time.

then there was my mom. she would work so hard on my costume. i remember nights watching her sew on her old sewing machine. it made such a hypnotic sound like the ones you hear near a train yard.. ch-chsh ch-chsh...

Oh! and trick or treating! wow. candy candy! taffy apples and rain.. it almost always rained on halloween. it was always so perfect to end early and come home to catch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on the TV. Dad and i would sit on the couch while i held my Snoopy tight as he battled the Red Baron.

a time to talk about thanks and pilgrims, to wonder what all those funky shaped gords were that mom dressed the table with, a time to gather leaves for a leaf book.... i still keep the first leaf i find every year. my hardback books are dressed with little memories of oak and maple..

autumn has always been my favourite time of year. perhaps it's the comfy sweaters or the hot apple cider, maybe the smell of pumpkin pie or the sound of swirling leaves on the sidewalk..

whatever it is, i always feel about 10 years old again. my creativity is sparked and my heart is light. autumn feels like how it feels to be home. a light in the window on a dark day that invites my soul to sit long and sip tea slowly.

. listen to the dancing leaves .
. tell tales and sing songs .
. remember how you felt as a child .

happy autumn!