My Early Autumn Days

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.

From my place on the tan leather sectional where you had propped me up on so many pillows, I could see the yellows and golds shimmering from the cottonwoods we had in our backyard. The window over the farmhouse sink was open, allowing the breeze to catch the grey linen café curtains, turning my attention to the autumnal fireworks underway. I had always loved autumn, even when I was a little girl, because then autumn meant that school was returning and I no longer had to find excuses to stay indoors to paint or draw. Brisk early mornings were spent shuffling through masses of red and gold, green and orange, the earthy scent of composting organic matter pungent and slightly moist in my nose. The clashing sounds of the school playground would become louder as I approached the century-old schoolhouse. The red brick building sat front and center, propping up the 1970’s style modern behemoth that grew like a cancer behind it, sprawling out to house the masses of children that the original schoolhouse planners had never seen coming. I ran eagerly up the stairs, and into the overly warm classroom, breathlessly dropping my backpack in the coatroom along with my anorak. I raced to the art corner my teacher always had set up for anyone to use during free time. The colors that I’d seen on my walk to school were still swirling in my brain, ready to come out the other end of the paintbrush. Painting was and still is exhilarating for me, a burst of energy and emotion in a cacophony of colors on canvas.

Autumn meant my birthday. After the start of school, my birthday was the thing to which I most looked forward. September 23 was late enough in the seasonal calendar for the leaves to be turning, but still early enough for warm days, which meant that most of my birthday celebrations were outside. The year of my 10^th birthday was particularly memorable, because that’s the year that I met you. 

You were a new neighbor on our block, and as I was still young enough that the mental condition known as the teenage years hadn’t yet struck, I was perfectly okay with having both girls and boys at my party. My mom said we should be nice and invite you, even though you sat on the opposite side of the classroom in school and I barely spoke to you. You came with a present wrapped up with a big red bow on top, the kind you buy at the drugstore with the peel-and-stick back, and you looked nervous, even I could tell. My mom made me step out of the group of girls I was in to greet you and thank you for the present, which I did, and then I did something I’d never done before or even after; I grabbed your hand and pulled you behind me to come see my birthday cake because this year my mom had decorated it with Tommy and Chuckie from the Rugrats television show, which everyone knew was the coolest show on Nickelodeon. You were suitably impressed, and thus won a place in my heart.

We were married October 8, 2005. You wanted to get married in the summer, but I talked you into waiting until autumn. Venues would be less expensive, I said, appealing to your frugal nature. Truth be told, I’d always wanted an autumn wedding.  Perhaps it was the artist in me, but I could perfectly imagine the colors of the season as our colors, accented by the emerald green I’d picked out for my bridesmaid’s dresses. For my bouquet, I’d chosen an arrangement of mums, dahlias, and roses, in rich hues of burgundy, dusty rose, and peach, with stems of eucalyptus arching out in graceful waves to add movement. We took a chance and decided to have the wedding outdoors at the Bluebird House on the edge of town, because if the weather was nice we would be married under the canopy of maples, but if the weather turned bad we could always have the ceremony and reception inside the ballroom. The weather was perfect. Everyone said they’d never seen anything as beautiful as our wedding, and I believed them. 

Our beautiful daughter, Claire, was born in the spring five years later. You said you were glad, because finally we’d have something to celebrate besides your birthday in that other, lighter, half of the year. As fitting the season, she was as bright as the sun, and came bellowing her arrival for anyone to hear. She looked like you, with her bush of almost-raven hair and her grey eyes that eventually darkened to match your chocolate-puddle brown ones. We were amazed at her wide-eyed wonderment of everything in her path, and it was as if we were also born again, learning about the world, fresh and new, through her. 

Noah kept up the tradition of placing celebrations in the dark half of the year, being born three years after Claire, in November. He decided to arrive just before we sat down for our Thanksgiving dinner at your mom’s house. It was the first year since Claire had been born that we agreed to have it there. In our hurry to rush to the hospital, someone forgot to put the turkey and accompaniments away, so when your mom got home after midnight from seeing her first grandson being born, she found the dog had helped himself to everything on the table. I’m not sure your mother ever quite forgave me for choosing that moment to go into labor. 

Time passed, and I threw myself into my work, having established my business as an artist, doing custom murals. I used my children, without shame, to network; the mothers at their preschools and elementary school were the perfect clients for nursery murals. In fact, by the time Claire and Noah were ensconced in their educations, I was working full time and then some. I would rush to pick them up from after-school and make it home just after you did. As the years have passed, and in light of those busy days, I’ve always been grateful that I never had to worry about coming home to cook dinner. 

Last autumn was the year of my fortieth birthday. I remember standing in front of our kitchen sink, you were washing and I was drying. The kids were watching SpongeBob in the family room, Claire laying upside down on the couch that I’m lying on now, with her feet on the back and her hair dragging on the hardwood flooring. Noah was pestering her intermittently with a Nerf gun.

“I’m too tired, let’s just keep it to us,” I’d said.

“It’s your fortieth! The big Four-Oh!” you’d replied. “You can’t just let it slide by! We can go to a restaurant, let them take care of everything.”

I remember looking out the window, staring at the trees, the tips just beginning to change color. I should paint them, I’d thought to myself. I couldn’t believe that in all the years we’d lived at this house that I’d never thought to paint the cottonwoods in autumn. I could really get into the hot colors, playing them up and creating a light source in the painting to make them seem alive. On fire, even.

“No, really, I think I’m coming down with something. And with Noah’s birthday coming so soon after, I’ve got to stay well because we promised him a birthday party this year.” I pulled the plug out from the bottom of the sink and splashed water to clean off the suds from the sides. 

“You’ve been tired a lot lately, you must be getting old,” you teased me, then took a swipe at my butt with the dishcloth. We both laughed and then embraced, but our kiss was interrupted by a shrieking Claire, who had finally had enough with her brother’s shenanigans.

A month later, we found out why I was always so tired.

I haul myself off the couch now, straightening the scarf that’s covering my baldness. I’ve been painting less these days; I haven’t painted any murals since my diagnosis. Everything came to a grinding halt then. But I have, occasionally, painted a canvas on the easel you set up for me in our family room. I go to it now, taking time to catch my breath and dispel my dizziness; then I select a few of my favorite brushes and a collection of paint, and take a small canvas with me as I head to the backyard.