Tuesday, October 16, 2012

A little autumnal magic

The leaves are falling, frost is circling the windows before dawn, and we're drinking hot tea three times a day. I had oatmeal with cinnamon this morning for breakfast, and Hannah baked homemade snickerdoodles yesterday - four dozen, and they are already gone. Sweaters, hats, scarves, and fluffy socks... bright red hues against rich dark branches, golden hues against a clear blue sky...

The house out our front window is the very image of Nathanael Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables, and when the warm glow of light is on in the evening I can see a mysteriously intriguing library in the front room and a black cat on the upstairs window sill...

The yellow house out our back window is adorned with a huge blushing maple that takes its time in discovering its true colors, and a fire pit smolders next door by day, and comes alive nearly every night to light and warm the alley... 

And with all this beauty and magic and joy, a girl's imagination can certainly get swept away...

The other night a storm came, with lots of wind that scattered the leaves everywhere, and twice our backdoor blew wide open. As I looked out into the velvety night, I wondered if the smallest star in the Milky Way had opened my door with its shout for adventure to that little boy who never grows up... and I hoped so... 

Could Peter be trying to come inside? And then I recalled that we did indeed hide his shadow in our kitchen nook drawer in July, and it's taken him a few months to miss it, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was his mission here that night... either that, or he was hoping to hear some good  stories, which he would have, because it happened just at my tea time with Hannah and Brie...

We didn't get to see him, and his shadow remains locked up safely, but his ancient dagger is now on my top shelf. He'll be back, I'm sure. At any rate, I think Hannah may have accidentally drowned or poisoned Tinkerbell with Drain-o in our bathroom sink, but maybe she deserved it if that's where she chose to look for the lost shadow... oh, we are far more clever than she could guess!