Milestones:  Mothering Again This Autumn

By Connie Colwell Miller

I have always been madly in love with autumn.

Crisp apples ready for plucking; leaves starched and bright beneath our feet; the cool bite of the air.

Full of what I suppose could be seen as the death of all things green, fall is not exactly a cheerful time of year for most people, including me, but somehow the season suits me perfectly. As soon as I feel the first smart snap against my cheeks, a nostalgic, pensive feeling washes over me. And I begin to reflect.

I recently read a book, which claimed that we all have a childhood memory from which we can’t escape. More than a memory, really, it’s a feeling that is ever-present in our minds — and one that we seek to recapture in everything we do throughout adulthood.

I have two such memories.

The first is the smell of autumn leaves. Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, that smell instantly pulls me back to my youth. I can just about taste what it was like to be a child, my face buried in a pile of leaves in the front yard, long strands of hair falling in my eyes, and laughing until my gut hurt.

The second memory is this: I am sitting on the sofa wrapped in an afghan, the TV is on, and my mother stands at the stove, stirring macaroni noodles. It is a cold autumn night, and darkness spills in through the windows, which (for whatever reason) are not curtained. I can smell the heat from the stove coils, and my siblings are spinning in an out-of-control blur around me.

These two images are fond memories, but, more than that, they are symbols.
Symbols of how safe I felt throughout my childhood, how free to experience play, how secure in the fact that my parents would care for me, feed me dinner, and, for the most part, allow me to simply work on growing up.

Like that book said, I do hold these memories close. I keep them, like faded photographs in a jacket pocket, to remind me of what life’s all about — for a young child. And these autumn memories continue to serve me still — as a mother.

To a great degree, my efforts as a mother are motivated by the desire to create safe and cherished memories like those for my own son. Sentimental, I know, but I often close my eyes and imagine him, 30 years old, reflecting on a few vague memories that, even though he may not know why, make him feel “just right.”

More than spring, for me autumn is a time of renewal. Remember how, as a teen, each fall was a chance to start over, to finally be “cool” this year, or to renew the effort for straight As that was lost the previous spring?

Each fall since I’ve been a mother, I’ve felt that way. Time to take my boy to the orchard, let him roll down the hills like a floppy bale of hay, bury his face in the cool grass until that smell is tattooed in his mind forever A memory, yes, but also, a gift: something to keep until he’s old and gray, to remind him that he was loved, cherished, and part of the wonderful, befuddling experience we all call life.

Yes, perfectionists love new beginnings. Poets, writers, and readers love autumn. And mothers love the opportunity to build, bit by bit, an entire world of beauty in the minds’ of their small children.