🍁🍁🍁 Crunch Party! 🍁🍁🍁
I love Novembers. The weather finally starts to cool down. Crisp days with a nip in the air, mean the leaves are crunchy beneath our feet, and I find myself smiling as my feet go towards the dried falling leaves of fall.
“Crunch party!”, I say to myself in that sing-song tone of voice I used to use with the children when they were younger. The other day, the son came on a short stroll with me, and he said, “You know, I say – ‘Crunch Party!’ when I am running with my friends and land up crunching the leaves as I run.”
It isn’t something most parents would be proud of, but somehow that made me proud.
I used to ask them whether they missed me at school when they were younger, and after the first few days in school, the answer changed from a commiserating hug as they knew I was missing them to a shrug to an eyeroll to a look that clearly meant ‘Are-you-for-real?’ So knowing that he thought of our sing-song silly rituals of ‘Crunch Party!’ as he ran with his friends made me feel happy.
🍁🍁🍁 Neighborhood Reds 🍁🍁🍁
The other day, the daughter told me to send her pictures of the colorful trees in our neighborhood, and I was thrilled. The day was cloudy and the leaves against the dull greys made for excellent pictures. That every evening it started to rain, and off I went with an umbrella. Rain and eucalyptus scented earth with red, yellow and maroon leaves fluttering down is sublime.
When I stepped into the house only slightly wet and wind-blown, I was greeted by a wet son who had run in the rain. I sent the daughter pictures of the leaves and she sent back a smiley.
“Just like that summer collapsed into fall!” I said, as I collapsed on the sofa with a cup of tea in my hands, and thinking of Oscar Wilde’s quote.