On Rainy Day Hush:

Today was rainy day slow. I cleaned up around here, made soup on the wood stove, and knitted, but I didn’t get much done. I kept on finding myself looking out the window at the rain falling and remembering.

Some of my earliest memories are of Autumn afternoons watching the kids come home from school. Of leaves swirling in the breeze around their ankles. Giggles on the cool clear wind.

I wanted to be out there and one of them. My mother would catch me not napping and put me back to bed. But I could still hear them outside on the side walk. Even on the rainy days the children would walk in the afternoons past the house in Autumn and find the fallen leaves fun.

My children liked to walk in the autumn and collect leave each year. We would tape them on the refrigerator and around the door frames. And we would press them in old telephone books for crafts and picture fun. Turkeys, and fans, and birds on wing.

Colored paper, paste, crayons, and togetherness.

I missed those times, and I sniffed at a box of crayons, and remembered.

I remembered the rainy day afternoon hush.