For the Love of Fall

Each Fall, when my kids and my friends' kids were young, we we picked apples and went to the pumpkin patch and threw elaborate Halloween parties. I loved marking the season in these concrete ways, watching small hands plucking fresh apples from trees, laughing as they struggled to carry pumpkins too big for them, dressing up and turning our house into a haunted house just for them. But the kids got older and seemed less interested and harder to impress so we stopped. At first, I was relieved because memory-making can be exhausting. But lately, I've missed it. Maybe it's precisely because they kids are getting older than I want to hold on to some of these things. I am not quite ready for all of this to be part of the past.

The oldest of these kids is 14 and the baby is now 9 and I talked to each of them at various times this summer about apples and pumpkins and Halloween. "Remember when...," I'd ask and each of them lit up, "Yeah! I remember that!" and then they would add their own memories. I told them that I wanted to bring back our old traditions and said, "We're gonna do this. Are you ready?" and every one of them said, "YES!"

So, recently, we met at my house on an unseasonably warm Sunday to go apple picking. Luisa was the only person missing but a couple of her plaid shirts made an appearance.

We all drove to Afton and, before heading to the apples, we all went through the corn maze . This time, the kids took their own path and the adults took another - a perfect metaphor.

We went on a hayride and picked overpriced apples and the kids ran through the orchard with energy that matched that of their younger selves. Zeca had a nose bleed at one point. One group of kids got separated and it took forever to find them. It was hot and crowded and I got crabby towards the end which was consistent with all those other trips to the orchard.

But the kids had a blast and I realized that things change and they don't, that some things are worth revisiting, that you're never too old to marvel at the world around you.

I hope the kids are ready for Christmas cookies and The Grinch. Maybe I'll text them to make sure they put it on their calendars.

Ridiculous

After dropping the kids at school this morning, I had to drive downtown to go to a dental appointment so I turned on some music and lost myself in my thoughts as I drove. Last weekend, I went to Chicago with Deborah to do strategic planning for VillageQ but we also took some time to drink bourbon and discuss my book. She had read it, had detailed notes on the manuscript and wanted to talk about it. I wanted to talk about it and didn't want to talk about it because writing a memoir feels indulgent at times so talking about that memoir feels even more so. But Deborah is persistent. Notice I didn't say patient because her response to my deflections was consistently, "Shut up and listen to me." And I did -  I listened.

When it comes to writing, I understand the minutiae. I am the kind of person who will stand in a forest and describe the dappled light on the bark of a walnut tree rather than tell you there is a bulldozer 100 feet ahead in shadows ready to raze the forest. There is work to be done with my manuscript that will require me to step away from the beauty of the light and peek into the shadows.

And I was doing that this morning - visiting memories, trying to find the emotional truth in them, attempting to understand how I can paint them in words - and as you might imagine, this made me more pensive than usual. When I get like that, I need small things in life to smack me in the head and make me laugh. Thankfully, the universe provides.

When I arrived at my appointment this morning, the dentist called my name and I followed her and she turned a corner quickly and ran right into a wall. Hard. I laughed - not nervously or subtly - but with my head thrown back, my loud laughter filling the hallway. Had she been mortified, the moment would have been ruined but she laughed too and said something awkward and then we both laughed. After the appointment, I thanked her for making my day and she thanked me for laughing with her. We both smiled and shook our heads, "What a day..." she said and I agreed. And it was only 10 a.m.

When I got home, I decided to walk down to the park to see a tree with leaves that have already changed to vibrant oranges and reds. The sun was shining and the sky was that clear blue that inspires me to say "thank you" aloud and the tree was calling me forward. I wanted to sit quietly and take a picture of it because I love Fall and days like this are my perfect days. When I got there, there was a woman with her toddler under the tree and they were gathering the colored leaves that had already fallen on the ground and tossing them above their heads and...I was annoyed. I know...you expected that I might smile and reflect on my own children and maybe even tie that reflection to the tree itself - changing seasons and all that. But no, I could only think about how this woman and her kid were hogging the tree and wrecking my Instagram shot. I waited. They continued to romp around in the leaves. I waited some more. More romping. I walked further into the park and then turned back. Still romping. I finally resigned myself to the fact that they were going to romp in those leaves like there was no tomorrow so I snapped two pictures, barely able to crop them out. As I walked away, I could hear their laughter and I hated them a little bit for ruining my moment and then I realized that I am a horrible person. Who hates romping and laughter? And I started to laugh too because I was being crazy, because I still think that I have control over anything, because life is humbling.

And just now, I got a Facetime call from Deborah and her son, Levi, popped into the frame to show me a bag of slime that looked like the product of a really bad sinus infection. He went outside to play and then came back in to show us that his hands were completely covered in slime and he couldn't get it off and I laughed and then suggested that he use soap and water and he came back to show us that his hands were still covered in slime and the towel was now covered in slime and I thought of The Cat in the Hat and the ring in the tub and I laughed even harder.

Life is ridiculous - perfectly so - and I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for people who walk into walls, for the ability to laugh at myself, for Fall, for friends and slime and for the giant latte I am going to get after I hit publish. Cheers.

Creating Shared History

We have a picture of our kids eating peaches on the beach in Melides, Portugal. The dunes are behind them and they are both staring out at the ocean, peaches in hand, juice running down their chins. The truth is that I haven’t looked at that picture in over a year. I don’t need to because the memory is so clear that I can almost smell the salt in their hair, feel the warmth of their bodies, and can almost taste those peaches as if I’d eaten one myself. Each day we spent there began the same way – making lunch to take to the beach. My family recently traveled to Orlando for the Family Forward retreat and during a workshop for Barilla’s Share The Table, Daniele Baliani, Barilla’s guest chef, recalled the days his family spent at the beach – a blanket laid out on the sand, simple food to be shared - and as he spoke, those memories from our time in Melides came back to me.

While offering ideas to help families make mealtime more meaningful, Chef Baliani led families in making a simple pasta salad reminiscent of those his family used to share on the beach. Each family received a tray with all the necessary ingredients and my kids began by tasting – a piece of basil, a sun dried tomato, a finger dipped into olive oil, a penne noodle popped into a mouth distractedly – and then began following instructions. I gave the occasional suggestion but watched as they made decisions together – add all the sun dried tomatoes but only a few red peppers – and worked together to make our meal, negotiating who would hold the bowl and who would stir. And as we sat down to eat, I realized how often we talked about the benefits of working together to prepare a meal in the simplest of terms. We emphasized fun, cooperation and responsibility and those are tremendous benefits. But more than that, when we prepare and share a meal together, we are creating our family’s history. The sights and smells and tastes, our hands joined in work – these become a part of who we are.

Every time I snap fresh green beans, I think of my mother, of hot Kansas summers and our hands working through a pile of beans together. My daughter says her favorite meal is stroganoff because it’s the meal she makes with Luisa, and I hope she’ll someday remember standing on a step stool to cut onions, the way the steam from the boiling water felt on her face and the way they carefully placed the pasta in the pot. I know my son already has some of those kind of memories because every Thanksgiving, he says, “Well, I always make the cranberry sauce…”

Each of us have our favorite memories from our trip to Orlando. Miguel loved the roller coasters and his giant Lard Lad donut. Zeca loved searching for penny machines to press pennies with all the Universal characters. Luisa loved every moment she got to spend in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I loved that we were able to be together without the distraction of our everyday responsibilities and I hope to hold on to the revelations I had while making a simple pasta salad with my kids.

These shared experiences bond us together now and will serve us all in the future as well. These are the times we’ll look back on and ask each other, “Remember when…”

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Barilla, however, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive sentiments towards Barilla or their products.

Featured Photo Credit: Vikki Reich