Last days of fall

I've had a bad habit lately of waking up at 5:30—and it's not to go run 12 miles like my sister-in-law. Today, I finally just got out of bed, and I'm glad I did. Right now it's dark and windy. It has been raining, so all the porch and Christmas lights are especially twinkly and doubled in number by their reflection in the wet streets. Fall has long been my favorite season. It has, of course, never been the metaphor for death, like Spring's metaphor of new life, that captures my imagination. The opposite really. I love that its crisp air showers us with leaves of fire. I never grow tired of their beauty and often find myself picking them up to share with Carter and the kids. In Pullman, I always looked to the fall clouds with the hope of the first snow of the season. It created a longing that isn't true of dark southern skies. These clouds hold promises of rain and wind and thunder. They're dependable and still deep and mysterious.

Hawthorne and I often talk about the weather. It's one of the items on his long list of fascinations. I told him it would rain today. "Why?" he says. (Oh, that child!)

"Because the weather is what it is, Hawthorne. It does what it wants to do. It's cool and frustrating that way, huh?"

"Hmmm," he says. "But how do you know it's going to rain."

Oh how I wish he had a mother with the patience of, I don't know, someone with a lot of patience. Then this could be a longer conversation with the answers he's looking for, but I come back with, "Well, I don't actually know and really neither do the meteorologists. It's all a guess based on the weather patterns we've seen before. That's all I've got, Hawthorne."

He wants to stay on weather, but I'm moving us on. I know that if I bring up another interest, I can change the subject, so I throw a plane question at him and enjoy just listening and thinking to myself that I'm glad I finally tracked down some good planes for his stocking!

Like the weather, Hawthorne's plane interest is a bit of a mystery. I'm not exactly sure what makes a good plane to him. He's all about what the planes can do in his imagination. He doesn't really seem to care what they're called or which one has the extra fin that distinguishes it from the model before that. If in his mind it's a navy plane that can take off and land on a carrier and save the world from some mysterious enemy, it's a good plane. Lord I hope my planes are fit for the job.

Christmas brings with it a bit of pressure for the person in charge of shopping. As an adult, I've always wondered how I can make Christmas easier on my mom. She gets all worked up about it and doesn't enjoy the hustle and bustle. As a mom now myself, I better understand. We want our children to have the thrill of opening a present they love. To pull it out of the box with a huge smile on their faces. The trick is balancing that with some of the other things we want for them: to appreciate how fortunate their lives are, to want to share that fortune, and to understand that happiness isn't found in things. Oh the drama of Christmas. All tied up in such pretty, pretty paper and ribbons. Once I get through all the shopping, trying to figure out the things that will produce smiles for all my nieces, nephews, and children, I'm going to sit back and enjoy my favorite thing: The white lights. This morning, I'm getting quite the show with the wind and leaves and twice as many lights twinkling in the dark outside my window.