Autumn Calls Us to Past and Present

Sometimes autumn decides to paint an individual portrait wherein she calls us to aid her. She stirs within us a desire to blend her colors with our memories on the palette of time.

So, we go back to a place in our past. Perhaps it’s a road or an old house; perhaps our childhood hometown. Autumn provides the outline. We brush in the sights, sounds and aromas.

Hills are filled with smoky autumn morning air as we revisit Jackson, Ohio. Childhood home of my mother and her grandparents, there is much the same; much changed. Autumn begs us not to be disillusioned, but to only enjoy the moment.

Wild purple asters fade into roadside fence rows. Reddish-orange poison ivy leaves are brush-stroked into the woods. As we stand on the ridge that once was Mother’s path to school and home, autumn’s cool sunshine touches goldenrod in the fields. From up here autumn has laid a soft pastel yellow and brown gauze over hill tops. She has cleared the sky to a pristine winter-is-coming blue.

Mother’s old home is no longer there. She can fill in the canvas though. Along with the house comes the sound of Mamaw calling her in for supper. Fried chicken, the last tomatoes, fresh bread coated thick with black raspberry jelly. Fried apples with cinnamon linger in the iron skillet on the back of the stove.

Floured smeared faces of two children with cookie dough cutters on the big kitchen table comes into view. Apple pies, hot, but not too hot to eat.