09-22-99 Eastern Echo

The autumn to heal

The air is once again brisk. Standing on the porch, the new risen sun is only gently tepid on my bare arms. The day is slow to warm and the lawn is beaded with the night's dew until almost noon. I listen to the sky, and it says autumn. (Autumn translating to perfection.) My children run barefoot through the cool evening grass, and I know it won't be long before I'm admonishing them with the familiar, "What, you think it's summer out here? Put your shoes on." It isn't summer. Summer has been put away with the swimsuits and the tank tops. It takes a lot of effort for me to feel sad at its going. Because as much as I like the Hadean days of summer, autumn is the season I could live in all year. Driving through the country we see pumpkins oranging-up in the fields. The apple orchards still have only two varieties of apples, but the parking lots are full. It's never too early to get a jump on autumn. I might get annoyed over Christmas decorations going up in the department stores in October, yet visiting the apple orchard early in September feels like a treat eaten before dinner. My family took special delight in our yearly excursions to the orchard near my mother's house. Usually we'd have a crew of fifteen or twenty; my brothers and their wives, my nieces and nephews of varying age, cousins and a few close friends. And of course my mother, the matriarch herself, who was quick to smack any of her grown children should they even consider throwing an apple at her behind. We'd fill the back of my brother's pick-up with shrieking kids and adults, hanging on for dear life as my brother tried to bang us around the bed of the truck, all the while laughing maniacally behind the wheel. Our apple picking often resembled the Last Stand of Custer. Informal alliances would form and collapse based on who had the best rotten apples beneath their tree. We'd hop on and off the big trailer that ferried pickers around the maze of Red Delicious, Macintosh, and those bitter little Granny Smiths, the angry shouts of the tractor driver fading behind us as we disappeared into the shadows of the hunchback trees. (Never get on or off a moving vehicle. The guy driving the tractor said so, and he must know.) Striking out for the unknown territory deep within the gnarled history of those hanging branches, we were searching for that one perfect specimen. Finding it, we would hold it up to the sky in homage, shouting, "Look at this one! It's absolutely perfect." Our hands quickly forgot the flawless fruit, tossing it into the bushel as we reached for the next absolutely perfect apple filling our eyes. Later we would gorge ourselves on warm cakey doughnuts and murky cider, swatting energetically at the circling honeybees and running when they came at us en masse. We knew how to exact revenge on my brother for his lunatic driving. All we had to do was shout, "BEE!" and off he'd run, head low and hands flapping as he tried to escape the unseen attacker. Can you say phobia? Stinging things were his. The smell of brisk autumn air and apples crushed beneath my feet will always bring with it a mental picture of my mother. Her un-tucked shirt she would use like a sling to hold the fruit she had picked. Her grandchildren circled around her feet like a pack of dogs, tail wagging and leaping over each other in their excitement to get the attention of their beloved "Gram." Tired and smelling of rotten apples, we'd make the same hair-raising trip home; trying in vain to keep the apples from spilling among our bouncing butts, laughing as hard in going as we had in coming. The meal had been put in the oven before our departure; my mom never gave our stomachs a chance to remember hunger. Roasted chicken with potatoes and carrots cooked alongside greeted our noses as we invaded the house and flopped into the dining room chairs, still chuckling over our bruised posteriors. The apple pies she had baked in advance cooled on a table in the screened-in porch, so we wouldn't have to wait for her to bake up the day's harvest. Always enough for desert and an extra four or five pies to take home with us when we left. It wasn't autumn until we made the pilgrimage.   My family doesn't make the trip anymore. We've somehow forgotten that it is cleansing to laugh. It is wearisome to chronicle our assorted differences, and yet we can't help but pick at the wounds we have inflicted upon each other. It's sad to think my children won't see the purity of the D'Amico pandemonium at work, sad that they might never acquire the piss and vinegar attitude that is indicative of our family personality. It may be wishful thinking, but maybe some day my family will realize that it's the small things that separate us. The big things that defined us still exist in our collective memories, connecting us to what was good about our lunatic family. If we could all go back to the innocence of those autumn days and remember family, remember to laugh like children, remember to forget our pain. Then the season would be perfect.