fall

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My kids call it the spider tree. It’s the Aspen at the back of our yard, forced into the corner where two sides of tall planks of fencing meet and shield our neighbors from unsightly behaviors like headstands gone awry and thirds of s’mores. Only a bush when we signed closing papers, it has grown with the years we’ve made this space ours. A ball stop for my husband as he pitches to our son, the starting point for Easter relay races, the shade needed for family photos. And this time, the backdrop for a showcase of Harry Potter characters.

Someday they’ll tell us in drawn out, annoyed voice inflections about how “we always had to take pictures outside.” I will care not. Because in ten years when one of them is balancing 12 credit hours, another is explaining scientific theorem of tornadoes using words too large for my comprehension, and the youngest is a pock-marked hot mess of hormones, I will be thankful for these snapshots that captured time. I will remember how they couldn’t quite fill the Gryffindor robes. How my son’s glasses were the most authentic addition to the costume. How black and orange tights bunched just behind the sweet bows of little shoes. The kind with a strap over the top of her foot and a rounded toe. The kind she won’t want to wear in middle school.

When I look back on this day I will not remember bad attitudes or impatience over darkness taking a millennia to arrive. I won’t remember their eye-rolling about arms so nearly touching each other’s they could gag, or the restlessness in all of us while Dad figure’s out camera settings.
I’ll see how their smiles were a clue to their budding personalities: her crinkled nose often accompanied with that signature, infectious giggle; his relaxed, obligatory grin; her lack of lips as she pulls them tight so her cheeks bulge sweetly.

Some leaves are starting to brown around the outer margins, like ready pie crust. Some are just peaking in yellowed brilliance. But most have dropped from every cool breeze that brings with it a promise, it won’t be long now. The earth groans for winter’s rest. The way I’ll groan for them to be young again.

“You are but a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”  -James 4:14

Just like that, the limbs will be bare.
Just like that, snow and ice will have their way.
Just like that, my daughter will have her own babies. My son will stand tall and strong in tears and a tux as he watches his bride walk down the aisle. My youngest will have taken more risks than I could have ever dared.

Just like that, they will be gone. And I will miss all this.

When the Show Starts

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My mocha has long since been gone, the powder and syrup likely settled in a gooey mess of scrumptious at the bottom of the paper cup. Outside, my lettuce is solid, traces of our first snow still weighing down the leaves. It will not get the chance to be begrudgingly eaten by my three young ones. Don’t worry kids, the grocery store stocks it all year.

It is date night. That blessed of all nights when we scoot off everyone in our family who isn’t married to grandparents who will sugar them senseless and let them stay up until they’re hooting like owls. The coziness of the cold day makes me want to cuddle up with a movie. That’s where the coffee and the classic You’ve Got Mail come in. I know my husband loves me because he’s agreed to watch it with me.

Nora Ephron’s quirky, whimsical, graceful script carries us through four seasons as Tom Hanks’ eye rolling makes us laugh and I study the way Meg Ryan’s masculine walk is perfectly charming for this movie.
“What’s your favorite season?” I’ve been asked the question several times recently and I always say the same thing. “The next one.” I like the change. Cold is nice until it starts to warm up. Hot is perfect until it cools down.

By the climax of the story it is spring and I suddenly declare, “Oh, I love spring.” If I am absolutely forced to settle on one, it will always be spring. It’s newness, life. You know, all those clichéd words that we say around Easter. It’s kinda true.
I’m drawn to the stark contrast of what’s happening beyond our living room window. Death. Fall is the process of the dying, slumbering of what was alive. And yet, the leaves are so brilliant before they go, the animals so full before they sleep. Did you know that the immense colors of fall leaves are there even in summer? Chlorophyll, so overpoweringly green, hides the yellows and oranges until it starts to fade. That’s when the show starts and the brilliant hues come forth.

I think when it’s my time to go and my smooth skin is sagging around my mouth, my richly brown hair is white, maybe my contact lense eyesight is only blackness or ability to walk sits with me in a wheelchair; when everything else has faded and I’m left only with the vibrance of who I truly am, I want someone to come paint my nails a fall red. I want all the years of journals I’ve filled to pile around me like raked leaves. They are the essence of the every day, authentic me. And I want my kids and grandkids to come…for a party. A last hurrah.
At the end, what remains and shines is the real us, and I hope I’m as breathtakingly beautiful as a fire-orange maple.