October 1, 2009
Dear Sammy,
On the day Aunt Jen took this picture of you and your mom at your house in Massachusetts, Pops and I opened our windows in Florida to sleep without air conditioning for the first time since you were born. The weather report says it's going to be cold in Massachusetts tonight so your parents probably have had the windows shut in your house all day. Ours are open. Your mom has you all bundled up, ready for a walk with Uncle Chad to show him the many colored leaves on the trees all around your neighborhood. He'll be surprised at how beautiful they are because he grew up here and you can't see fall in Florida the way you do. Leaves don't really change color, but we do have a fall season. One week the trees are full, the next they are bare because the leaves all fall at once. Florida's beautiful in the fall, too, but for different reasons. First, the smell of the forest changes. In the summer it's heavy and musky – like Pepper after she runs far and needs a bath. Then, on a day like today, the forest smells hardly at all. The air is clear and the sound of the squirrels chasing each other rustles tree branches so that we think there are thousands of them. The birds sing louder, too. Or maybe there are just more of them, as the ones that you've been listening to all summer- the swallows, warblers, hummingbirds, the Cardinal family – come south to get out of the cold. Mommy said you're starting to eat solid foods. Maybe you'll go picking apples soon and then your house will smell all warm and toasty as your parents make applesauce for you and pumpkin pie for them. Love, Marmee
It was a perfect fall in Florida day. We wore jeans for the first time since May, too, and the sun was low in the sky so we didn't get sunburned as we ate a picnic lunch.
2 comments:
very much enjoyed this. kristen
Oh, the memories of Fall in New England... the smell of apples baking in a pie, and the rustle of leaves on the ground. Plus the vibrant color of those leaves. Oh, yeah and the blisters on the hands as your have to rake those leaves, then the sneezes as they die and the allergies kick in full bloom, which then leads to the really COLD weather... and that four-letter dreaded word: SNOW!!! OK, I'm through with memory lane, back down here to Florida, with the warm - even hot weather.... But thanks for the beautiful prose to make me remember for a time....
Post a Comment