Making the Leaves Fall

Living in Florida sounds fun and exciting. Unless, of course, if you actually live in Florida. People imagine life in Florida as always being warm. Always being able to wear shorts or swim. Never being cold.

People who actually live in the Sunshine State know better. They know about the heat. The humidity. The daily thunderstorms in August. The sweltering heat in July and, unknown to those who live up north, they know about the occasional frost that can occur in the winter.

Taijon knew about all these things. After all, he had lived in Florida his whole life. Taijon was eight years old. He was in the third grade and his class was learning about the seasons. Florida went through the seasons like everywhere else in the world, but he didn’t actually experience the seasons the way other people experienced them. Taijon looked at the books his mother had in the house. She ran a daycare center out of the house and had lots of books that taught you about science. The books told of the different seasons and what happened when the seasons changed. He read about the snow in the winter and the snow melting in the spring.  He read about summer being warm enough to go swimming and the leaves changing color in the fall. Taijon looked at the pictures that depicted the fall. He saw people dressing in warm clothes standing under trees with brown, red, and orange leaves. Some of the leaves were on the ground under the people’s feet. Taijon had seen pictures like this many times but had never actually seen this in person.

One night, Taijon was looking at one of the books. His family had finished dinner and his mother had finished setting everything up for the children who were coming the next day. He was looking at the pictures of the trees with the different colored leaves and wanted to know why this happened to the trees and why he hadn’t seen anything like this where he lived.

“Well,” his mother said, “Trees go to sleep in the winter. Before they go to sleep, they get rid of the leaves in the fall. The leaves help the trees breathe and get their food during the spring and summer. In the fall, they get rid of their leaves again and go back to sleep until the spring.”

“Just like the bears?” Taijon asked.

“Yes,” his mother said. “Just like the bears. The bears go to sleep in the winter and wake up in the spring. The trees shed their leaves in the fall, go to sleep in the winter like the bears do, and grow new leaves when they wake up in the spring.”

“Why don’t the trees do that here?” Taijon asked.

“It’s not cold enough,” his mother said. It gets cold up north. So cold that the trees couldn’t survive throughout the winter. So, they go to sleep during that time and wake up in the spring when the weather warms up again.

Taijon asked to go online. He wanted to watch a video about the seasons and see what the trees looked like when the leaves changed color. The trees get rid of the leaves? What happens to the leaves when the trees get rid of them? Taijon watched a video about the fall and saw people in their yard raking the leaves into piles. Sometimes the leaves went into a compost pile. Sometimes the leaves got dumped by people in the woods. Sometimes people who collected the trash came by with a special truck and took the leaves away. Taijon had never seen anything like that before.

People found different places for the leaves but the best use for the leaves was what he saw after people were done raking them. After they were done raking leaves into a pile, Taijon saw people running for the pile of leaves and jumping in. Taijon thought that looked fun. It was like a natural pillow or mattress for people to jump into. Rake a pile and jump in.

Taijon went to school the next day. In science class, he learned about the seasons and the Equinox, which happed at the beginning of spring and autumn. The Earth tilted toward or away from the sun, depending on which season was starting. His class learned about the fall and the leaves changing colors, just like he saw in his mother’s book.

Taijon had an idea as he sat through his science lesson. He had never seen the leaves actually changing when he was outside. He had only seen it in pictures and videos. When he got home, he pulled coats off the coat tree and moved the coat tree into his room. He went to the closet where his mother kept the arts and crafts supplies for the children who came over during the day. He pulled out some red, orange, and yellow construction paper and a pair of scissors. Taijon cut the paper into pieces so they looked like leaves. He put the “leaves” on the coat rack carefully so they wouldn’t fall off. He was about to turn on the fan in his room when he realized he had forgotten something important. He ran outside. In the back corner of the yard was a toy rake. He brought the rake inside the house. Taijon went into his room and closed the door. He turned on the fan and watched the “leaves” fall off the “tree”. After the coat tree was empty, he grabbed the rake and went to work. His mother came into his room to see what was going on. She saw the small paper on the floor.

“What are you doing?!” his mother asked.

“The leaves fell off the tree,” Taijon said, pointing to the coat tree. “I’m going to rake them up.”

Taijon did just that. He raked the “leaves” until the scattered scraps of paper were collected into one pile. Taijon’s mother watched as he took handfuls of “leaves” and made another pile on his bed.

“What are you doing now?” his mother asked.

“Watch,” Taijon said. He climbed on his bed and jumped into the pile he made. He took handfuls of the paper and threw them into the air. When he was done, he took all of the paper and threw it on the floor. His mother watched as he raked again and made another pile.

“Now what?” His mother asked.

“Wait,” Taijon said. He ran out of his bedroom and came back with a trash bag.

“Now I’m going to clean the yard,” he said, and he took handfuls of the handmade leaves and put them in the trash bag. When he was done, he stood in the middle of his room next to the stuffed trash bag. The rake was still in his hand.

“Do you think we could travel north sometime?” Taijon asked his mother. “Do you think we could see the leaves in different colors?”