Trippin' Fall

Looking out my window, I see the colors of the leaves changing on the branches of the trees. The air is still warm, as is normal here in early November, but the breeze holds a hint of chill, a promise of cold weather coming. Halloween is past, and on the occasional front stoop is a saggy jack-o-lantern, its wide gapped-toothed grin curving in on itself with the onset of rot. Across from my house, the big inflatable turkeys dot the lawn of the ostentatious neighborhood millionaires, replacing the five or so Halloween inflatables that were just there days ago. Never mind that they still have last year’s icicle lights up. It gives their yellow Victorian mansion a more gingerbready fairy tale appearance when lit, not unlike Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disney World.The air is neither too hot nor too cold, just the right temperature for playing outside.

My daughters rushed though their homework yesterday afternoon so they would have the rest of the daylight to play. Normally, I like to think of the after school outside playtime as an hour or two when I can stay inside, uninterrupted. But they needed my help. After all, someone needed to rake the leaves into a big pile at the bottom of the slide. I found the rake hiding with the rest of the unused yard tools in the storage room in the garage. I walked to the backyard and put my shoulder into some serious leaf pile making. When my children were younger, I would stand outside with the rake, neatening the leaf pile after each romp so that each fresh mound seemed like the first one of autumn. They are older now, and so am I, and all that raking and appeasing is a lot of extra effort that I don’t want to make.

The only way my daughters like to enjoy a good leaf pile at the bottom of the slide is, well, to slide into it. Which meant that in addition to my raking and pile making duties, I also needed to remove all the spiders that made the slide and the rest of the swing set their summer home. I am sure there was an easy way to do this, but I don’t know it, so I opted for the lazy way instead. I found a small twig on the ground and used it to poke holes in all the spider webs, swirling them around the end of my stick like creepy cotton candy. I worked first on the on the simulated rock wall, as each toe hold was inhabited, making the entire wall like an arachnid condo building. After I displaced all of those spiders, I used my twig to clean each step into the playhouse. There was a surprising number of spiders lurking on the steps. I realize that it was outdoors, but seriously? Can't the birds do a better job of eating?

I’m not a big fan of climbing up into the playhouse, for the same reason my daughters never play in it. It’s filled with spiders. I had at them with my twig, stick-sweeping all the corners and eaves. Pearl sized spiders dropped down like paratroopers and surrounded me. I poked at them with my kindling and yelped a few times, until they crab-walked close enough to the edge of the playhouse that I could flick them into the grass below.

The whole process of leaf raking and spider evicting lasted over thirty minutes. My daughters each sat on a swing, patiently waiting for me to finish so they could attack the leaf pile and frolic around in the playhouse. At one point, one of them went inside and got a Sharpie from the kitchen, which they used to write each other secret messages about how slow I was on sheets of river birch bark.

It’s not that I minded cleaning up. It’s just that I know all this playing outside excitement is a one day event. One afternoon of activities will bring us home too late to play outside. A day or two of rain will set in. Birthday parties and dance practice will have priority, and the next thing you know, the play set will once again be filled with spiders and the remains of their frequent meals. And who do you think will have to clean that mess up? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not Daddy.

I complain about the cleaning, but honestly, we rarely play outside. In winter, it’s too cold to swing and slide. Gloves make the handles difficult to grip. Noses run and lips chap. Spring is also a no-go, with everything outdoors coated in a thick layer of greenish yellow pollen. All it takes is one innocent rub to the eye to make it swell shut for a few days. Summer is no better. All that sweating and dirt makes for an interesting skin tone, and no one enjoys that third degree burn to the back of the thighs from searing down the slide. And don’t forget the mosquitoes. Five minutes outside and it looks like they have the pox.

So fall it is. Leaves and spiders be damned, it is the perfect season for back yard play. Hopefully the conditions will stay right to allow a week or two of fresh air and free reign of imagination, of fluid movements and high pitched laughter, all of which I can observe from the comfort of my kitchen window. Until I am needed again, twig in hand, rake at the ready.