An Autumn Memory

I was blowing out my candles and getting ready for bed when this memory suddenly came to me as the temperature dropped outside to feel like Autumn. I grabbed my journal and sat down to write some scribbly memories on the pages. 

I was eight again, and at my grandma's place in North Carolina, when she lived in the mobile home at the top of a big hill. The mobile home complex was up the hill, and at the bottom (and across the highway) was Walmart and Piggly Wiggly. I am pretty sure they are both still there.

When I was little, it was all magical to me. We would go up to the mountains to visit my grandma every Autumn. I remember going to Walmart and buying Franklin leaf looker sweatshirts (My mum and I are showcasing ours in this photo. Of course, mine is a sweatshirt dress. I guess they didn't make children's sizes). I am quite certain I wore that sweatshirt every day. I carried that camera around, because I wanted to take photos of the Autumn scenes that were so fascinating to me (birth of my love of taking photos?).

We would play outside on the sloping grassy lawns that enveloped grandma's quiet, spacious neighborhood. The leaves were our toys. I don't think we needed much else. Crunching them underfoot, we ran through piles of collected leaves by getting a running start down a little hill. Collecting leaves was always an activity, which we would bring back to grandma's and sit on the porch making some framed art with coloured leaves.

Autumn in the mountains was a world away from Florida. It held a sense of magic that only could be found in the mountains. It must have infused itself so deeply in me that I long for it every year without fail, and I am almost tempted to don a leaf looker sweatshirt in order to do so. Thankfully, those sweatshirts no longer exist.