Late August ends a maelstrom of to-dos in our house. We have successive birthdays, an anniversary and back-to-school events that keep us toeing an over-scheduled tightrope until the end of the month.
As the whirlwind died down last month, my thoughts turned to fall and how it’s become my favorite time of year, mostly for the nostalgia it brings. My mom loved fall, and as a former high school cheerleader, she never lost her school spirit. She graduated from the tiny Matthews High School, but you’d never know it the way she cheered for the Sikeston Bulldogs.
Halloween was a favorite holiday of hers mainly because it involved candy. She loved popcorn balls and candy apples, and her favorite snack was a mixture of peanuts and candy corn.
The arrival of fall reminds me of the years I spent attending or participating in one of Sikeston’s big events, the Cotton Carnival, which includes the Miss Sikeston pageant among other events. The whole town turns out for the parade on Saturday to watch the pageant winner glide by on the back of a convertible while children scream for candy thrown from people atop passing floats, tractors or horses.
My mom put forth enthusiasm for the Cotton Carnival and its pageants just as she did for holidays; she made everything a big, fun deal, and I’m learning to do the same for my daughters.
Naturally, then, we made the first Ole Miss game of the season a holiday at our house complete with a picnic and pompoms.
As we watched the game, I realized it’s time to appreciate and soak up the here and the now with Wesley and these girls.
For too long, I have centered my attention on the next big thing; that was how I coped with my grief. I busied myself by looking for the obstacles ahead so that I did not feel the pain of the present. Fortunately, that season has passed, but I still have not been present, and I have spent too much time on my phone mindlessly scrolling through a Facebook newsfeed that I’m not even interested in.
It is time to enjoy what’s happening with my family right now because watching Lollie’s autumn unfold is something to behold. As a newcomer at Washington School, she loves to see the cheerleaders and drill team dancers, and after school, she pretends she’s one of them. Between the cheers her aunt and I have taught her and the ones she’s overheard at Washington School, she’s cheering for the Washington Bulldogs and the Sikeston Generals, whose colors are red and gold.
She knows that we love Ole Miss (Hotty Toddy as she calls it) and she knows what we do with ’Sippi State, as she calls it.
Mary Fin, too, is a joy. She just learned to clap and she does so very politely; she holds one hand still and claps the other upon it as if she’s in the presence of the Queen of England. Her other new trick is to waddle around our coffee table. She squeals with delight when she makes it all the way around without falling; she is so proud of herself, and we are so proud, too.
All this makes me so excited for what this fall will bring: Morgan’s 24th birthday and Mary Fin’s first, Mary Fin’s first Halloween, Ole Miss football and postseason baseball, but I know that right here, just after Labor Day, is a pretty great place to be.
© Laura Hough Smith and laurahoughsmith, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Laura Hough Smith and laurahoughsmith with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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