Monday, September 30, 2013

Fall Means Change

This is a piece I wrote when I was going to Boise State University.  I did a little update on it recently for a writer's workshop at the Coos Bay, OR library.



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.

1 comment:

  1. 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.

    Then, 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

    ReplyDelete