Fall Films

Fall Films

Memories tend to make us what we are. We don’t always reflect back on a whole life but snippets of film in it, for moments that turn a memory on. It’s the little things that come back to you while you are doing some random time filler that catch your attention. I have been reflecting this first full day of fall, on a failed marriage and how the memories are triggered by light, sounds and seasons. The fights in the marriage as well as the happy moments invoked by a word, conversation or a mere feeling. 

It is early fall and the light is filled with the hues of pumpkins, apples and wheat. Those annoying swarms of gnats are in groups hovering in the early afternoon air. I have taken the wet laundry out of the washer and come out on my back deck stepping down onto the grass crossing the yard to hang the laundry on my clothesline. The clothesline came with the house when we bought it, and it was built to last. Made of pipe in towering 'T's and painted the same green to match and blend with the surrounding pine trees and their needles that dot the entire yard. Our backyard backs up to the forest and the sounds of my youngest son and his best friend playing happily in his fort, the forest and just now running through the yard past me in costumes. Their backpacks hanging onto their small shoulders, are filled with weapons. Involved so deeply in their world of make believe they don’t even see me hanging the clothes on the line. I have a dryer, but this simple chore of carrying my basket on my hip to the clothesline and pinning the pieces up to dry in the air enriched with the scents of pine, rose hips and ripened oriental plums feels me with a peace that I find rare more and more of late. 

I stop, and just revel for moments in that peace, turning my face to the sun feeling it warm my skin, closing my eyes in bliss and inhaling deeply. Knowing by feeling the sun on my head that it is picking up highlights in my hair that could be making me glow as a fall color all on my own, if someone was to be watching me in this light. It's right at this moment that I think to myself that I'm happy in this simple moment and I wish that I could bottle this feeling of utter peace and happiness.

This memory of happiness is so pure I can remember it like a movie in my head even though it has been ten years since this day. Shortly after this, things started falling apart for us and when I was restless I would try to capture the feeling of the day and how I had found it. Pure happiness can be elusive, maybe that is why this memory is so clear to me and as I still fight the restlessness even now, wishing that moment could be found in my collection of  perfume decanters, dabbed on my wrist or neck infusing myself with feeling.