When I was a very young child, I
believed that leaves turned into birds and flew south for the winter. Back in
those days, when I was trying to figure out how the world works, I got a lot of
convoluted ideas about life.
Surrounded by mostly adults out on
our farm, I listened to and interpreted their conversations the best I could.
My parents and siblings often talked about seasonal changes, of the birds
flying south for the winter in autumn, and of the leaves falling. Those two things
especially got mixed together in my mind. The next step in belief only required
a bit of magic.
And the world then was full of
magic, it seemed to me.
One autumn morning in about the third year of
my life, I sat on the front step of our house while my mother sat on the porch shelling
corn.
I should have been helping her with
the shelling, but mostly I sat there with an ear of dried corn on my lap and an
empty bucket at my feet, watching the wind blow. A strong blast shook the oak
tree in the front yard. That tree was a close and favorite friend of mine. A
couple bales of leaves drifted down to the ground below.
But as I watched, it appeared to me
that instead of all drifting down, some leaves drifted up and sailed over the cornfields and the trees, with beaks and
wings silhouetted against the wide, gray sky.
So I thought that special leaves, maybe the
most colorful ones, get to turn into birds and then fly south for the winter.
Kind of like going to heaven. It made perfect sense to me at the time.
When I told my mother what I had
discovered, she smiled and continued
with her corn.
A year or so later on the same
porch, again shelling corn, this time with one of my big sisters, I watched the
scenario play out with the oak tree in much the same way I remembered from
before. Sitting there idly with ear of corn in my lap, I told my sister about
how leaves turn into birds and fly south for the winter.
My sister put down her ear of corn,
sucked the blister on her thumb, and regarded me with a scowl.
“That’s the craziest thing I ever
heard a four-year-old come up with,” she said. “There must have already been
some birds roosting in that tree and they flew away when the wind got sharp. You’re
too dreamy. Everybody with any kind of sense knows that leaves are leaves and
birds are birds.”
“And you need to get busy,” she
added, indicating the empty bucket at my feet. “You’re old enough to shell more
corn than that.” She grudgingly went back to her work.
I looked down at the empty bucket as
devastation washed over me. My sister was a senior in high school. She could
tie her own shoes. She could read a book to herself.
She knew just about everything there was to know about everything.
I looked back up at the oak and
wondered, if leaves don’t turn into birds and fly south for the winter, how
could I even be sure that the stories that old tree had told me all summer were
true? Or that the tooth fairy could find my house? Or that someday, if I worked
at it hard enough, I could grow up to be a horse? And marry Elvis Presley?
I figured it would be better not to
mention things like that anymore. And so I haven’t. Mostly.
Fall is and always has been my
favorite season. As an adult, and a homeowner, I’m now almost completely
certain that the leaves on our trees don’t turn into birds and fly south for
the winter. Or at least, the majority of them don’t.
The majority of the leaves from our
trees, after a great deal of effort on the part of myself and my husband, spend
the winter at the bottom of the garden, turning into homemade dirt.
Which is not a bad end for a leaf.
It’s a nice spot down there, surrounded by hickory trees and oaks. I go down
there myself to sit in a little patch of sun that finds its way in, Scout and I, and the Devil Herself
of a morning sometimes.
Cup of coffee. Toast and jam. It’s
a nice place to sit and watch the wind blow when I should otherwise be working. I can listen to any stories the trees might care to tell. And its a good place to
keep watch in case any of the leaves get enough gumption to magic themselves
into birds and fly south for the winter. You never know.
 |
| Any excuse will do. |
Happy Thanksgiving. Watch the leaves.
Leann
