Grandma's Attic

AN OREGON OCTOBER

If other people can't come out with me, I'll just have to bring this wonderful autumn day in to them. I walked out toward the burn barrel, and scuffed my way through the piles of dry crackly leaves clustered under the tree, out by the weathered picnic table David make for us in years past.

Piles of leaves, and suddenly childhood settles in on me again. I loved walking to school in Baker. Two and a half blocks and I was there. No long drives or bus rides like now.

This is probably just about the best feeling October day in my life. I'm not sure there haven't been a lot of days just like this, but I've never felt one like I feel this one. The sky is pure blue---not a whisp of cloud anywhere, with just a ripple of wind, just enough to jar a few more leaves free. I watch them settle in around me.

How I liked to build leaf-houses when I was young. We had no TV to watch. No lessons to go to. Not even piano lessons yet. No little league or other sports, after school was over. The rest of the day after school was all mine.

My sisters and I would push the leaves with our feet, or maybe a rake, and build walls in our pretend house---a bedroom here, the kitchen there. A break in the leaves made a door you could walk through and you didn't even have to close it, because it wasn't even there.

A big pile of leaves, all squared off, was just right. A bed of leaves to plop ourselves down in was prickly, as the dry leaf stems poked through our blouses, and we could lie there and look up and see the world. No ceiling, no walls to hold us in. Just us, and the world, and our imagination

The orchard today is a myriad of color....greens, orange, golds, reds. Every tree wears its own dress, with some leaves hanging on. They look like long rows of lovely ladies, all in their colored ball gowns, but with nowhere to go. But I can go anywhere I want, in my mind.

I'm in the white lawn chair. The sun is warm on my back. It's that wonderful warm kind of warm, that soaks inside, where it feels so good. I wonder if I'm too old to build a leaf house? we've had a lot of bees this year and wasps and some still buzz around me now.

I love it when Dee picks a pear and munches into it, the juice dripping from his chin. Carlo just came over to get a hug. All he need is a light pet on the head and now he's settled in. It's so good to just sit and feel, to feel how good the day feels, and how good I feel just being here.

In all of creation, I think where I am right now is best. Every day is beautiful, but some days are just more beautiful than other, and this is one of those.






I have to soak in all these last days of summer, so I'll have some warm in winter when it's cold. As I move my feet, shifting my position, I am surprised at the rustling sound. I guess nothing else in the world sounds like dry leaves on the ground, or in the tree over my head. Some of them are barely hanging on. In fact, there, some just lost their grip and floated down to join the others.

This is also the season for fruit flys, with all the ripe apples and pears in the garage, getting ready for canning. We have a bumper crop this year, with plenty to share. In all of creation I think where I am right now is best. Every day is beautiful, but some days are just more beautiful than others and this is one of those.

When I get back to heaven and they say "pick out your favorite day"

I'd pick today, right now, right here. This is just a really good feeling day.

There are millions of teeny tiny bugs in the air. They are so small I can barely see them except when I stop and really look. That's the trouble with the world today. People don't take time to look. The sun is lower in the sky now. I hear someone running a saw over on Starr Lane, getting wood ready for winter.

The best part of today was when Dee took a picture of me laying in a pile of leaves

so I could be a child again, my inner child that is always there,

and only comes out on days like this one.

The seasons flood together. They said on the radio it's time to do Christmas shopping, but first comes Halloween. I pull a leaf out of my hair. Back in the house. I don't feel like doing anything yet, so I'll just sit here by the window and watch the leaves in the front yard, as they drift themselves off the tree onto the ground.

Maybe I'll just go outside, and build one more leaf house before October in Oregon becomes only a memory. But sometimes a memory is as good as being there. No, I think I'll just sit here, watching and feeling good. What a great day this is!