Hopes, dreams and the names of the trees

Leaving the house on Friday morning was a bit like walking through the wardrobe into Narnia. As I stepped down the stairs, a bright pink Angel Delight sky lit up the acid yellow leaves on the tree in my front yard, drifting down around me like confetti. At one time I would have been astonished by this sort of thing, the stuff that happens in nature, everything that's supposed to be grey drenched in colour, but I was sad that all it made me feel was nostalgia, but for what I wasn't quite sure.

Maybe it was the memory of collecting autumn leaves as a kid, pinning them up on the classroom cork board and arranging them next to the correct tree names, and stretching my tiny hand out next to them, quarter of the size, wishing to be big and grown-up. Back then the future was exciting and far away and unknown, and I didn't yet have memories but only hopes and dreams. And the names of the trees.

So maybe I've come to a point in my life where there are more memories than hopes and dreams, and I've kind of become 'stuck' in them and it suddenly feels vital to me to keep making new ones, to appreciate pretty things and laughter and nice words, and to tell people things they need to know. And also, memories fade and disappear and I don't want to fade and disappear with them.

A leaf was amazing to my five year old self, but the old man upstairs sweeps them up and puts them in a bin bag.