It is officially fall. It means I have work ahead of me. I live in a town where people welome autumn with corn stalks, hay bales, mums, pumpkins, gourds and ornamental cabbage. It’s a horticultural process. I am peer pressured into participating---which doesn’t mean I do not appreciate the fruits of my labor-- I just resent the labor.
I resent that when I was young my mother simply hung 3 ears of Indian (or is it now called native American?) corn on the door and she was done. She sometimes put out a pumpkin too—but just one—not several ones like I do in varying sizes that exactly mirror each other on my front steps. And when the squirrels made a mess with the lone pumpkin,my mother punished them—she threw the pumpkin away . She didn’t put half eaten pumpkins in the in the corner of the yard like I do so the animals have a snack to munch on all winter long. My mother did not spend hundreds of dollars at the nursery or out east at the many farms. She felt no obligation to pull the impatiens out of the ground—she didn’t feel that the summer and fall flowers were in competition with each other. She never agonized over the hue of the mums. No one did. It wasn’t important. Life was less complicated.
I decorate much less than I used to. My back and knees complain too much when I overuse them. And by next week my fall floral palate will be complete. The summer door wreaths will be put away and the autumn wreaths will be hung in their place---all 3 of them---and they coordinate with each other. And when the job is complete I will stand on the sidewalk and gush over how nice it looks to myself. And I will be happy that I bothered---that is until I have to redo it all over again the day after Thanksgiving.
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