Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Leaves

Before they even were falling she was intrigued by them. Finding the most tattered, green, dirty leaves she could find. Some brown and crinkly--great toys for the cats who then distributed parts of the favored leaves throughout the house.

Driving around New England, I see yellows and oranges and reds unfolding in front of me. It is hard to not keep driving and enjoying the view.

One of my favorite things is to shuffle my feet with a big pile of leaves in front of me. The crunching, rattling sound and the crisp smell of the leaves reminds me of a time when I was young and I walked home from school with my best friend and we would talk about things (some important and existential, some superficial and long forgotten) as we shuffled the leaves under our feet.

I bought wax paper again this year. Every year the leaves remind me of my Grammie. She and I would pick out our favorite leaves and put them between wax paper. Then she would use her iron to wax the leaves. I would gently pull the wax paper apart to find waxed leave decorations. We would then arrange them on her kitchen mirror.

As I wax the leaves this year, they are a paltry bunch. I only picked a few, I let her pick the majority (her taste still seems to be for the forlorn ripped, dirty leaves). He picked a few too, but not as many as he used to...too busy being a teenager to want to do the leaf thing this year...and she is too small, but interested, so she watches while I warn her that the iron is too hot for her to play with.

I tried to put them on our big kitchen window, but Kif went right for them, so my efforts this year were hastily relocated before he got them all...



There is a pile of leaves in my yard, soon to be jumped into and thrown about.

I love autumn.


If you are interested in seeing other 30 posts in 30 days writers, please stop on by NaBloPoMo, or stop on by Suzy's place.

2 comments:

Suzy, Not a Fertile Myrtle said...

I used to love collecting leaves and iron them! I haven't done that in so, so long.

What great memories you'll have of autumn.

And silly Kif!

Kate @ Ex Libris said...

It's been 10 years since I lived in MA, but how I miss the fall there......

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