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I love the fall. I love boots and big sweaters and snuggling down to read with ten blankets and the cat. I like putting my cold feet on my husband’s back and making him yelp; I like watching the fog burn off in the mornings. I like kicking up showers of colorful leaves, and smelling other people’s bonfires.
Fall in my
home country means all of those things. Fall in my adopted country means gardening
and beach visits and eating outside. It means suntans and flip-flops (jandels
to the locals) and sundresses. I suppose I could adjust my worldview and call a
southern Fall Spring, but that just seems contrary. I’m of the opinion that
October is Fall.
My husband
likes to tease that it just isn’t spring until I bring out my fur-lined boots
and his old sweatshirt that I stole when we first met. He finds my refusal to
adjust amusing. I find his amusement amusing, so we get along just fine (cold
feet aside). He’s a southern boy, however, and doesn’t understand my
fascination with the changing seasons.
Oh well. I
don’t understand his fascination with bikes and other things that go fast.
My daughter
is an interesting combination of us both: she dislikes change, preferring
summer to fall and a moderate speed to racing along the highway at 90
kilometers an hour. Her father tries repeatedly to interest her in cycling; I
think he’s transferred all the hopes he had for me. As I age I become more like
my mother: I prefer to take my time.
This fall
I’m pregnant again. Emilie was born in September; her brother will be born in
March. Somehow I ended up with equinox children, which amuses me as I was a
summer baby. Jordan has already bought his son a bike (hope does spring
eternal). I’ve begun another baby book, in aquamarine and olive instead of
Emilie’s peach and rose. I work on it when I have free time, usually before my
family rises. My sister complains that now she’ll have to remember which Jordan
is which; we’re naming him after my husband. It’s a family tradition, of sorts.
(Although my grandmother claimed until she died that my father was named after
a beloved childhood pet.)
Gian helps
me write and arrange and glue. He likes to chase the ribbons into corners of
the room, or lie directly in the middle of what I’m working on and ignore me. I
didn’t expect him to adjust to our life here, but he took to Emilie and he
tolerates Jordan’s two cats, Mauss and Ace. I can’t count the number of times
I’ve gone in to wake our daughter from her nap and found the two of them curled
against one another in the crib, snoring away.
It’s going
to be a beautiful day. My aching back meant I rose early. Jordan is already
out, riding along the country roads and keeping himself sane. I reach for my
battered metal water bottle and consider our options for breakfast. Emilie is a
voracious eater; Jordan Jr. gives me gas and an even pickier palate. Gian has
found a spider; he has a distinct rumbly purr that means he’s hunting. I watch
the sun rise over the hill and rub my stomach.
It might be
a day for boots after all…
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I hope you likey. :)
WolfGrrl
I wubbz :)
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