Autumn Thoughts

I sat at a red light recently and saw the season had changed. Just like that. With a snap of her saucy finger, Mother Nature had begun to change the leaves. It was hotter than blazes as my grandmother used to say. Sticky and humid and stale as only New Jersey can be. I sat at the light and saw a tree had already changed its color. It wasn't dried out. Its leaves weren’t shriveled as though diseased. They were gold and brown with a blush of red. It looked like fall. It reminded me of so many autumns of the past. When we were rushing to get school supplies. When we rushed down to see the class listings posted on the front doors of the school. When we rushed to a relative’s house for one last picnic before the schedules and responsibility filled all the upcoming weekends. And I thought to myself, I wish for just one more of those fall seasons. My youngest has gone off to live in the land of one season. My oldest will again be teaching. I'm sure she has a whole new set of feelings when she sees the trees change color. But for me, I remember the squeaky new shoes, the starched new dresses, the slicked back hair, the smell of the chalkboard dust, the garbled morning announcements. And for my children, I’ll remember the nervous laughter of the kids gathered at the front of the school on their first day back. And their quick glance in my direction before entering the doors, as if to verify that yes, indeed, summer is over and fall is really here. The tree informed me in a hundred and one different memories and smells that the fall is just a season, no longer an event.