I went on a short Nature stroll this morning with a friend, basking in the bright-to-fading Autumn colors we're so abundantly blessed with on the East Coast. I also took a quick walk to a friend's house a few blocks away, to return something I'd borrowed earlier. With the soft sunshine and slight breeze, the 65 degree day has been so beautiful, and I think we all feel this urge to get as much time outside as possible, before winter blankets us in dreary coldness.
(Plus, Hurricane Sandy, aka "Frankenstorm," according the weathermen here, is freaking everyone out and will probably ruin our beautiful weather for the next week...rude! So everyone's getting outside like it's the last time they'll ever breathe fresh air again - because who knows, it might be.)
As I walked back from my friend's house and got to my street, the leaves piled up on the side of the road from brooms and leaf blowers clearing yards of the fallen foliage, I thought back to the Autumns in Wisconsin, how we gathered the leaves in our backyard and how beautiful they were after they'd just fallen off the tree, still rich in their reds, oranges, and yellows, not yet sapped of their moisture and life, not yet dry and brown and broken. I shuffled through the leaves on the side of my street now, wondering if I ever really played in leaf piles growing up - did I ever really jump in a pile of leaves, scattering them everywhere? It was usually so cold by the time they fell, I raked them as quickly as possible, muttering my frustration and chilliness about this chore I found completely unnecessary. I didn't think playing in leaves was nearly as fun in real life as it seemed in cartoons and comic strips. But as my feet sloshed through these leaves today, one memory rose up - the memory I always go back to when I think of Autumn:
One day, when I was about 9 or so, my brother Zach and I were asked by our mom to rake the leaves in the backyard. We had a lot of trees clumped together by our house, and that spot in particular was in great need of clearing. It was a normal Fall day - overcast, cool, with a wintery chill in the light wind. We donned some warm layers, pairs of gloves, and thick socks, and, likely grudgingly, made our way to the backyard to rake up the leaves. Mom came out and helped us for a bit in the beginning, and it went quickly - we had raked up more than half the area by the time our noses were pink. Then mom left us to finish raking while she went inside and finished some other things.
Zach and I got a really great leaf pile going - it was huge. We combined the little piles we'd made with mom, so there was a pile the size of a bed, rising almost up to my waist. It was beautiful to my young eyes. Gone was the cold, the exhaustion, the arm aches, the annoyance. Our hard work had created a mass of leaves that was bigger than me!
As we gazed at our accomplishment, Zach said, "You know what would be really great?" Assuming that whatever he said would inevitably be the best idea I'd ever heard in my life, as it always was with my older siblings, I asked, "what?"
"What if we bury you in the leaves to hide, and I'll go get mom, and when she comes out, you pop out and surprise her?!"
It was, in fact, the best idea I'd ever heard in my entire life.
I quickly agreed to it.
Since the pile was bigger than my whole body, it was a pretty simple task hiding me in it. I laid down in the leaves and Zach piled more on top of me, so I was covered, but could still jump out easily. He left a nice hole for me to breathe through, then left me to hang out by myself, not moving, while he ran inside to get mom and bring her out "to inspect our work."
So I laid there, not moving, but giggling to myself as I imagined how scared my mom would be when I jumped out at her. In my mind, it was going to be awesome.
9-year-olds aren't usually known for their patience, and after awhile, I began to get antsy, wondering why it was taking Zach so long to get mom outside. I thought it over and considered that it'd take some time to get inside, then he'd have to located mom, persuade her to come outside, right away, and then for her to find her shoes and jacket and come out. So I needed to have more patience than 5 minutes' worth, which I'd assumed had already passed. My ability to judge time has always been poor, so I didn't really trust my instincts in how long I'd been out there anyway; I might've been laying in the leaves anywhere between 2 minutes and 25 minutes at that point.
So I laid there a little longer, not moving, but really wishing I could scare mom already!
Finally, my patience was completely worn out, and my cold, stiff body could no longer remain hiding in the leaves, with just the wind to keep me company (though the wind has been a good friend of mine since childhood - I've always loved it). So I worked my way out of the leaves, disturbing the pile as little as possible, and went inside to track down my brother and tell him our plan was a failure. I had hoped to find him trying to push mom out to the backyard, while she was trying to finish an important chore.
Instead, I found them both in the office upstairs, Zach showing mom how to do something on the computer - that something being something that was completely unimportant and totally non-urgent.
!!!!
I had been left in that pile of leaves for 45 minutes, according to the clock, while mom and Zach enjoyed the warmth of our home and the comforts of modern technology.
As I quietly walked into the room, neither of them looked at me at first, both absorbed in what they were doing. Then Zach, feeling my presence behind him, turned around toward me,and a sheepish grin spread across his face, which confirmed my deepest fear:
I had been forgotten underneath the leaves.
It wasn't the first time I was forgotten and left somewhere, and, as the youngest child in our large family, it definitely wasn't the last time. But it left its mark on me -
I never trusted anyone again when they mentioned playing hide-and-seek, or suggested anything that left me to hide by myself.
And I never played in large leaf piles again.
