Saturday afternoon, my perfectionist self completely redid all the lights and ornaments on our christmas tree. I feel kind of guilty about it - the kids did it all themselves last week, but it was bugging me, and now it's not. Afterwords, I decided to spend some time out in the sunshine.
Belle the Dachshund went out with me, and we played with sticks and all that sort of thing for a while. She settled down to gnaw on a nice little branch, and I got a crazy notion to do something I hadn't done in years.
Every time a car went past I couldn't help but wonder if they suspected what I was about to do.
I don't really know how long I was out there, but progress went pretty fast.
I raked up a big pile of leaves from our front yard.
Then I stood in front of it and fell backwards.
I swished the leaves around with my arms, and then settled in, leaves from either side spilling over on top of me. It was wonderful. The spicy smell of crisp autumn leaves surrounded me as I looked up at the sky through the bare branches of the oaks.
Some of my clearest memories from our old home in Jonesboro are of playing outside in the Fall. We had 6 or 7 pecan trees in the front yard, and Laura and I spent hours stomping on pecans for a "snack", or making nests and forts in the leaves. I remember being completely immersed in leaves, burrowing underneath what seemed like monstrous piles of them at the time.
In Mansfield, we didn't really have any leaves. Just pine needles. One year, back in the woods behind the dog pen, we raked up a small leaf pile - half of it was pine needles. It was a disappointment, and we didn't try again.
So... Saturday afternoon with nothing to do and a vast expanse of crunchy, spicy leaves before me,
really - what else was I to do?
Belle the Dachshund went out with me, and we played with sticks and all that sort of thing for a while. She settled down to gnaw on a nice little branch, and I got a crazy notion to do something I hadn't done in years.
Every time a car went past I couldn't help but wonder if they suspected what I was about to do.
I don't really know how long I was out there, but progress went pretty fast.
I raked up a big pile of leaves from our front yard.
Then I stood in front of it and fell backwards.
I swished the leaves around with my arms, and then settled in, leaves from either side spilling over on top of me. It was wonderful. The spicy smell of crisp autumn leaves surrounded me as I looked up at the sky through the bare branches of the oaks.
Some of my clearest memories from our old home in Jonesboro are of playing outside in the Fall. We had 6 or 7 pecan trees in the front yard, and Laura and I spent hours stomping on pecans for a "snack", or making nests and forts in the leaves. I remember being completely immersed in leaves, burrowing underneath what seemed like monstrous piles of them at the time.
In Mansfield, we didn't really have any leaves. Just pine needles. One year, back in the woods behind the dog pen, we raked up a small leaf pile - half of it was pine needles. It was a disappointment, and we didn't try again.
So... Saturday afternoon with nothing to do and a vast expanse of crunchy, spicy leaves before me,
really - what else was I to do?
That sounds like a blast if you ask me. Sometimes you just have to journey back to your childhood for a brief moment in order to keep life exciting.
ReplyDeleteMost of the crunch leaves here are gone, since it is slowly getting colder. I miss fall already!
ReplyDelete