Seasons

shaphan had to go to work tonight - until 10 o'clock. i'm sitting here, drinking a glass of wine by candle light and listening to a music list Shaphan made for me and doing some writing.

he knows me so well. knows exactly what music relaxes me. i've written this piece i call 'seasons.' it's sort of like a reflection of my life in Minnesota, written from the perspective of a child. the sights, the sounds, the smells that made an impression on me when i was young...and what they mean to me now.

i like to remember how i felt as a child. it helps me to understand and connect with children now. their thoughts and feelings are really not so different from ours, they just take on a different forms. and if we can see where we connect, how we were the same, then we can truly be their friend.

here's an excerpt (if you can believe it, it's much longer) of my some of my thoughts as a child...
(should make for some mildly interesting reading:)

my young eyes were inexperienced. i had only really seen a few autumns. i looked down the hillside and it looked like a canvas that was painted with the brightest of red, yellow and orange paints. much more alive than the pictures i had watched Bob Ross paint on PBS.

it's funny how you can see something so many times and then one day you notice it.

my eyes followed the bright colours down the hill to where they met the rocky shoreline of Lake Superior. i looked out over it's dark and lonely waters. i wondered how many people lay at the bottom of the monstrous deep; how many lives had it swallowed up in it's countless storms. and yet in this moment, way out there to where i could barely see, it looked so still - so peaceful. a part of me wished i could swim to the middle of the big and fearsome monster. to defy it and reach it's stillness. ice cold and choppy. i was used to that. my respect lay in the currents which my mother always warned me about. so despite my courage to explore, i stayed close to shore.

outside, i could feel the lake's moisture in the air. the air in the autumn was fresh, cool and crisp! and it had the smell of wet leaves. the huge oak and popple trees in our yard rained down their leaves on my face. i loved raking all of them together. i'd bury myself in colors of red, orange, brown and yellow. i pretended i lived in the leaves and they kept me warm, just like i saw my cats do. then i'd burst out of them and toss them into the air, just to feel them fall on me once again. then i'd fall into them and just lay there looking up at the sky; taking in the smell. to this day i love the smell of fallen leaves.

as a teenager, i loved the bonfires we'd have at night down on the shore of the water, listening to guitar music and playing charades. jumping in the water. the beginnings of what were to be life-long friendships still in their infancy.

while i was sitting on a log that had washed up on shore, i turned to look at the water. i noticed the leaves had covered the beach and gradually grew more sparse as they made their way down and into the water. and from there they floated out into the darkness. they seemed so out of place laying in the sand. it brought me back to my thoughts as a young child. in that moment i wished i could have swam out into the darkness with them - life a little more complicated now - just to feel the peace and quiet of the water.

now, an adult living in New York City, i don't see as many trees as i did when i was young and the East River will never enchant me like the lake did. this year i sort of missed the autumn all together. on the bright side, walking down the sidewalks to work, it was nice to see the leaves change on the trees in Brooklyn H-ights. though the trees are sparse, i can still smell the damp leaves from the few. i think i'd be able to smell that aura from a million miles away because it's the smell of home and the innocence of my childhood.

i see the leaves scattered around on the city streets, run over by all the traffic. life happens. and to this day i am so tempted to gather them all and lay in them....just so i can look up at the sky and pretend i have no responsibilities and not a care in the world, just like when i was a girl.