Making memories

If t is autumn here in the western part of the Northern hemisphere “well, in this part of Canada anyway “some places it is warmer; some places it is colder. As is traditional (or should I say obligatory) I have spent the past week preparing the yard for the winter. Now for those of you who live in climates where winter is only a time to stop worrying about sunburns, “preparing the yard” may seem a little strange. So, let me enlighten you ...
It does not mean going outside with a cup of tea and having a chat with the trees, letting them know that there are tougher times coming; or processing the sense of loss felt by the grass at the reduction in sunlight hours. No, it’s much more active than that.

First, of course, it involves trying to find the ground under mountains of leaves. It’s hard to describe how many leaves there are in the yard – the words billions and trillions come to mind. Now the Canadian Maple is a wonderful sight to behold when, in late fall, it is in radiant splendour.

Beautiful! Until you realise that all those leaves, and those from a dozen others just like it, are going to fall on your garden and grass, and your job will be to rake them all in to piles and then, depending on your inclination, bag them, burn them, or mulch them and return them to the garden (our choice).

Then, of course, plants unlikely to survive the winter (remember it gets to -30c here at one point) must either be covered, or re-potted and returned to the house to over-winter in the relative comfort of the basement. And the soil needs to be turned for next year, and the dried vines torn down ... and on and on.

But in the midst of all this annual work of transformation, there are treasures to be found, great treasures guaranteed to last a lifetime. If you were raised here, for example, the huge mountains of leaves are sure to stimulate the memories of being a child leaping with abandon in to the piles, ending up covered beneath the rejects of maples, lindens and other shedding monsters. The sound of them crackling under your feet as you walk across the grass returns memories of long walks on warm autumn days, perhaps with friends or family, or perhaps just alone with your thoughts “and the sound brings the thoughts back. And if you are fortunate enough to live in one of those communities where they still let you burn the leaves – well, there is just nothing like the smell of dried leaves smouldering in the pile. Ah, memories of late October bonfires, roasting marshmallows, warning your front while you back chills in the wind.

And, if you are really lucky, as I was this year, while you wander around “preparing your yard”, other delightful moments arise.

Today, for example, as I was picking up the bits and pieces of a summer scattered throughout the yard, I came across the little “garden men” my mother made for us a number of years ago “as the plants drooped, and the leaves fell, they emerged from their summer hiding places to confront me with memories of my mother “and memories of my father emerged as I turned the soil in the garden he helped me make so many years ago. And look, there beneath the Linden, a glass Sylviane and I thought we had lost, left there from that wonderful warm summer evening when we ate beneath the grapes. And the new tool she gave me as a gift lies half hidden still where the peppers no longer grow. And the shadowy remains of our few successful gourds “grown from the seeds of a friend in another province remind me of how much fun we had talking about our common interest “and all that memory from just a few little seeds saved from a previous year. As I pluck some over-ripe tomatoes (collecting the seeds, of course) I remember when we bought the first seeds years ago in the Canary Islands with another set of friends; and collecting the bean seeds reminds me of my sister for whom I dry them.

Life is good in the back yard. Not just because it is our back yard, although that is a part of it, but because, like all places where we live “for a long time, or temporarily “it is a repository of moments and memories. It is a place where life-lived, lives. Like all life, it requires work “effort expended in the effort of moving forward.

Just like when we work with young people and their families “in the midst of the hard work, there are moments that form the memories which last forever. When we work in the present, we are well served to think about the memories of the future. Yours, of course. But more importantly, theirs.
Make their memories ones to be cherished.

Thom