Thankful Day

Thanksgiving started out warm & sunny, as if I awoke to find my fantasy had come true and we were suddenly living in Hawaii. While I chopped & basted, husband and children organized & cleaned house. Then they went out on a walk in the sun and came back apple-cheeked & sweaty.

Then the wind blew.

We have a couple of large willow oak trees in the back yard. They are beautiful, and they are a pain. The leaves are about four inches long, about the width of your finger, and pointy on each end. Not your typical oak leaf! The acorns are tiny, perhaps the size of the tip of your thumb. The leaves and acorns defy raking. They cling to the lawn with their sharp tips when you try to blow them away. It's better to let them sit on the lawn until spring... which is one of the reasons the grass doesn't grow so well in my back yard.

In mid afternoon a weather front whistled through, bringing a scattering of rain and a mighty explosion of wind. The leaves sailed off the oak tree and headed for my neighbors yard (GO! GO! FLY!!!). The sky was awesome, with dark purple gray clouds as a backdrop for the bright colors of autumn trees, which were lit up by the long rays of sun reaching out from the far side of the weather front.

Nora and Dominic saw the leaves flying. Suddenly there was nothing more wonderful, no game more delicious, no video more interesting than the great wide world. They ran around the front yard trying to catch leaves, stuff them in their pockets, and compare treasures. They opened their arms to embrace the wind, as if they had wings and were ready to soar into the sky.

A change in weather can affect your mental and physical body. Some feel rain coming in their bones, or the onset of winter in the way their skin changes. A warm, sunny day seems to make everyone happy. And the burst of energy brought forth by the wind and leaves invited my children to shriek, run, and leap with joy.

The wind rolled up the street in gusts that eventually settled into a gentle sigh. The neighborhood trees, which up until yesterday had been holding tight to their leaves, as if they were waiting for our last warm day, decided to release them and send them softly on the breeze. What better way to spend the afternoon than to relax in the still-warm grass, watching the swirling patterns above, mingling your energy with the earth.