grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Remembering a different fall.

By

remembering fallJust like that, the sticky scratchy summer blanket of heat has been lifted away for a while. And I’m remembering fall.

A different fall.

I am magically transported to a certain time when I lived with my friends on the surface of life, and each day began with a what-will-we-do-today freshness. And Norma and Vic and Steve and I tossed a football in the front yard on the first chilly afternoon since early spring, and the fields around the house were thick with dry soybeans, and somehow every second of that day is imprinted on my mind as though I knew it would always be rare and perfect.

Because it was fall.

And we crammed into the cab of Steve’s powder blue truck and rode to the levee and along a dirt road that hugged the riverbank, and we sat side by side watching the muddy water roil by, always the same, yet never the same.

And the crisp air smelled of harvest and promise and money that would soon pave my way to college and to a completely different life.

And the sky was the color of the sea.

Today, I wonder if Norma remembers that day when we wore matching sweatshirts, different colors, but the same.

And I wonder if Steve remembers parking so close to the water’s edge we thought we’d be washed away. And we laughed about floating to New Orleans and away to someplace else. And he held my hand in his.

And now that Vic knows all the secrets of the universe, I wonder if he ever looks down and watches over us, and if he sees the river, always the same, yet never the same. And I wonder if he knows for a fact that our day on the river was heaven on earth because we were young and carefree.

And because it was fall.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[Musical Pairing:
Seals & Crofts, We May Never Pass this Way (Again)

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Comments

      • Talya, you have an amazing ability to paint with words! Please continue sharing your talent. My senses were turn on full blast while reading this blog about fall and beyond that I found some old but much loved memories of my own to revisit. Thank you for touching my heart today! ?

  4. Talya, you have an amazing ability to paint with words! Please continue sharing your talent. My senses were turn on full blast while reading this blog about fall and beyond that I found some old but much loved memories of my own to revisit. Thank you for touching my heart today! ?

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!