Foliage in a vase

On Sunday morning, I embarked upon some fast and furious housecleaning that needed to be done before visitors arrived at noon. In order to ensure that I could concentrate on the tasks at hand, I was on the verge of telling Holly she could play games on my computer when she approached me with a request. “Mommy, may I –“

I braced myself for the dreaded “…watch TV?”, knowing I was busy enough to guiltily say yes.

“…go outside and pick leaves?” she asked.

“Yes. Of course,” I said. I wasn’t expecting this. The leaves were just starting to change, but for the past couple of weeks Holly has needed to be coerced into most outdoor activities, and usually only after I promise that a stop at the ice cream stand will be included.

Holly knows that being outside alone means she has to stay within sight of the house. As I vacuumed, I could see her out the window, plucking leaves off the low-hanging branches of oak trees and collecting maple leaves off the ground. It’s a nice idea, but now she’ll come inside and deposit piles of dried-up leaves all over the house, I couldn’t help thinking as I started emptying wastebaskets.

I heard the front door open and close a little while later. I could picture Holly bringing her armfuls of foliage into the house and depositing them on the polished kitchen countertop. I mentally added “heaps of dried-up leaves” to the list of things I’d need to clean up before this housecleaning siege was over.

But again, I was surprised. “Mommy, can I choose a vase myself?” she called upstairs.

Yes, I told her. Just use the kitchen stool to reach the cupboard where the vases are stored.

After that I immersed myself in dusting and didn’t give much thought to what Holly was doing. So I was unprepared for the sight that greeted me when my cleaning project finally advanced as far as my home office. On each of the two windows in that room, outlined against the morning light shining in through the glass, stood a short round painted vase with a thick sheaf of crimson, yellow and green leaves standing in a few inches of water. While I expected Holly to toss down her bounty and forget about it, she had selected the most appropriate vases, remembered to add water, arranged the leaves beautifully, and found a perfect place to set them.

“Holly, that looks so pretty!” I exclaimed. She followed me into the room and smiled proudly, but didn’t linger for further praise. She felt an artist’s pride in what she’d done; she didn’t need to hear more from me about how lovely it was.

I underestimated her. Where I initially expected a request to watch TV, she went outside to gather the first autumn leaves of the season. And where I expected the activity to end with a messy pile, she made a beautiful arrangement – for my office, no less.

She has an emerging sense of artistic style that will probably suit her well in the years to come. And I learn a little more every day about why I shouldn’t hasten to judge my children. They still have the capacity to surprise me, after all these years.

Hoping to turn my kids into hikers!

The weather is beautiful today, a quintessential New England mid-autumn day. Blue skies, the foliage a mix of green, yellow, peach, chartreuse, crimson. (It’s probably not quite yet peak, but we forget at peak that the emerald can be a really lovely contrast with the brighter colors, before all the leaves have turned.) Belle and I ran 2.3 miles midmorning, up through the Center, looping around at the Highland Building and back past the school: Running Streak Day 789.

We’re coming up to a 3-day weekend, Columbus Day, and I’m fervently hoping I can get my family outdoors for some kind of organized, dare I say, hike? Hiking is probably way too strong a word for my family’s abilities. I doubt we’ll be tackling Mt. Monadnock any time soon. But I’d settle for a walk on one of the town’s many conservation trails, or even the loop around Walden Pond. Before I had children, I went trail-walking all the time, and I just naturally pictured I’d have kids who bounded through the woods with me. But so far, that hasn’t been the case. When Tim and I were running every day, one of the benefits was simply getting Tim outdoors more often, even if it was for only fifteen or twenty minutes a day. Now, between biking to and from school, playing baseball twice a week, and daily recess time during the week, he still gets a reasonable amount of time outdoors, but it’s a bit vexing to me that neither of the kids likes the idea of just walking in the woods or fields all around us and all throughout this region. Rick has never taken much of an interest – his famous quote about this from long before we were married was that if a recreational sport doesn’t involve fights, finish lines or scores, he’s not interested – so I don’t even expect him to join me, but I no longer have the excuse on the kids’ behalf that they’re too young or too little. They could be fine hikers if they wanted to. The problem is that they don’t want to.

With the forecast fine for this weekend and it being such a beautiful time of year, though, I think I’m going to dig my heels in. They don’t have to conquer any mountain ranges, but surely we can walk the perimeter of our local conservation land or do a mile on the nearest public trail, can’t we? As I always say, writing a goal down takes you at least 60% of the way to making it happen. I sometimes invoke the acronym WIDMIH: Write it down [to] make it happen. I hereby write down that I will get my kids outdoors for an off-road walk lasting at least 20 minutes (hey, might as well start with really really low expectations) this weekend, once during the three days we have off. We’ll see how that resolution plays out.

Farewell, September

It’s already the first of October, and the weather feels like fall: cool dry gusty air, trees aflame with yellow and red foliage, ground turning hard and rutted where in the spring it was muddy and in the summer, dusty. I caught the cows eating out of the hay barn today, standing at the gate and chomping on whatever they could reach, which means they’re finding the grass less lush for grazing. Last year we didn’t start feeding them hay bales until November 1, but I think we’ll start sooner this year, unless there’s a resurgence of thick green grass, which would take warmer temperatures and a lot of rain.

Mid-fall is beautiful, but I would have been happy to stay stuck in September, with its mild sunny days and sense of boundless enthusiasm.. At the beginning of the month we went to such a great Labor Day cookout at Anjali and John’s house (for which I still owe a thankyou note); then there was the triumph of Holly learning to ride her bike, and in the middle of the month Tim’s eleventh birthday (for which he still owes some thankyou notes). Now, the new school year is well under way. So far, the fun parts are still a novelty: the bike rides to and from school for Tim; the walks with me out to the bus stop for Holly. And the kids tend to stay fairly enthusiastic about school all year long. But it’s so much fun when everything still seems new: not only the teachers and class configurations but the schedule and activities. Soon the weather will turn a lot colder and the routine will seem more, well, routine.

September is always a time of beginnings when you’re on the school calendar, and my theory is that even if you’re an adult without children, some part of your consciousness always retains that sense of a new start in the fall, but this September seemed more exciting. It felt like there were more hopeful possibilities in the air and fewer onerous duties, which may be because neither of the kids is playing soccer this year. (Just kidding, soccer fans!) I’m really excited about the directions my writing is going in: new article assignments, long-time jobs starting to wrap up (such as the Stow municipal master plan), and yes, even this blog is giving me fresh motivation for writing. After a somewhat uninspiring though not unhappy summer, September brought with it fresh air, new opportunities and high spirits.

Now it’s October 1, and although ruing the passage of time is a pointless conceit, I have to admit I’m sorry to see September end.