Fall Means Change
Fall means change. It
is a time of year that causes me to get a little anxious about where my life is
going. If I’m in a job I don’t like, I
tend to make a change at this time of year.
And true to form, that is what I’m about to do. In fact, though a new job is on the horizon
and it isn’t yet confirmed that I have the job, I’ve already given notice to my
current employer. This means I get a few
days off during the transition.
I like to take at
least one of these “free” days to wander about, taking in the sights and sounds
of a sunny autumn day. My first stop is
at my local neighborhood market which has undergone its own transformation. Overnight, cardboard bins have appeared
outside the store and they are brimming with fleshy orange pumpkins and bags of
sweet, juicy apples. Next to them are
bundles of dried corn stalk for decorating front porches. Inside, the seasonal aisle has been turned
into a walk-through haunted mansion.
There are decorations, costumes, candy, day-glow wigs, black witch hats,
dozens of Disney and Marvel comic book character rubber masks, and an
overwhelming array of baskets and bags and plastic containers of every shape
and size to collect goodies in the night.
Turkeys
are marked on sale in the freezer section.
The end of each aisle sports all sorts of items to stock up for the
coming Thanksgiving feast! I make a few
purchases – refreshments for my countryside tour – and head out in my car.
I travel toward Wilder, a small town 45 minutes out of Boise, Idaho. I visit an old apple orchard that once
belonged to my grandpa. He is long gone
now but I can still recall his boisterous laugh – a laugh that rode the wind
sweeping through the orchards. My own
small voice would answer his laugh back – a laugh he said reminded him of bells
tinkling. I remember grandpa once hired
me at the end of the harvest to knock dried up bad apples from the trees. He paid me $8.00 an hour to go around the
orchard with a ten foot pole and swing at apples that had withered and died due
to lack of water. My job was to knock
them to the ground. I thought I was
going to be rich. After about two hours,
my arm muscles gave out. But grandpa
gave me $20.00 and I spent it all on candy!
Next, I drive to the old pioneer graveyard in Lower Fort
Boise. A cold wind brushes across the
hillside. No flowers grace any of the
graves. Memorial Day has long since
passed. The only adornment is a few
colorful oak leaves that have fallen from a bent tree beside the stream. They catch against the headstones and pile up
into little drifts of brittle leaves.
Where the rain puddles, the leaves are a soggy clump against the gray of
the stone. It is good to visit this
sacred place and remember my heritage and the past. So many are gone now. Eight of us have died in the last 10 years
alone. I have no family except my
younger brother living near me. My cousin,
who used to be very close, moved to Colorado
twenty years ago and we no longer speak except through internet websites like
Facebook and Twitter. My work and play
consume me. So many demands and so
little time. The years pass much faster
than they did when I was twenty. I feel
the pinch of it as I grow older. I feel
that I am not living the life I was meant to live but I don’t know how to
change it. I am restless and often
bored.
After wandering the countryside I prepare to return to
work. I am starting the new job. Now instead of taking the highway, I take the
country back roads to my new workplace.
Along the way, I admire the gold, red, purple, brown, and mossy greens
that signal that the trees will soon drop their leaves. Some, like the trees that line the street
where I park, have dropped millions of tiny quarter-inch almond shaped
leaves. I don’t know what kind of trees
they are but it is nature’s glitter that hitches a ride
in my hair as I ride the elevator. They
are stowaways in the creases of my clothing and down the sides of my shoes,
clinging to my socks. I sit at my new
desk and choose a wallpaper pattern for my 246-color computer screen. It is a glorious photo of fall leaves
floating on a pond. I feel renewed, like
a child ready to explore my new world.
Nancy, what a lovely story. I was struck by the interaction between the girl and her grandpa and loved the contrast of their laughs that you described.
ReplyDeleteThen, the passage about the leaves. Wow! I especially enjoyed this line: "... it is nature’s glitter that hitches a ride in my hair as I ride the elevator. They are stowaways in the creases of my clothing and down the sides of my shoes, clinging to my socks."
Thanks for sharing your work, Nancy. I look forward to reading more. xoA