Fall Musings

10/25/09
Something about the fall, especially beautiful fall days, bring back memory after memory of growing up in rural South Dakota. I close my eyes, and I pretend I am back in our old house. It’s after school, and there’s nothing I want to do more than go out to our wood swing-set in the back yard. Sometimes, I would convince Nick to join me, but even if it was just me, I was completely content. I would swing, talk to myself, sing, look at the hay, and daydream about the future. But there are no swing sets here, and even if there were, I can’t swing and daydream in the same way.

Younger brother, Shane, daydreaming on the swingset in the backyard

Shane, Nick and Author "helping" at the car wash

Along with fall comes a deep loneliness too. To me, fall in the Midwest is one of the best places to be. It’s Sunday, so there’s a good chance mom would have made a delicious apple pie for the noon meal. In attempts to surpass time and space, I try to make apple bread here in my kitchen. Still unable to master the settings of my oven, I scorch the top of the bread and fossilize the bottom. Maybe I can just light an apple candle. Thinking about family also has me wondering how I can make it another 8 months without seeing them. Their faces are already starting to become blurry. I feel the loneliness settle in the same way the final curtain closes after a play or musical. You want to join the happy characters in their colorful lives. You want them to give you just one more scene or act. But it’s impossible—the play only lives on only in the capacity that you are able to remember it in your mind. This analogy is by no means perfect but somewhat reflects the distance I feel between our worlds.

Any flavor of pie will do :)