Autumn Leaves (Behind)

Association is a powerful, powerful thing.  It serves so many purposes, but perhaps none so much as the ability to retain a memory.  It is an indifferent mistress, neutral in the extreme it cares little whether those memories are good, bad, helpful or painful – it simply serves its purpose, attaching memories and sensations in an intricate web of gossamer slivers of time.  It creates for the brain snapshots of consequences, outcomes, decisions good and bad – creating ghosts where none existed before, rekindling flagging fires of past pain so that they can singe their way along embattled nerves time and time again.  Warm vignettes of loved ones and joyful experiences ride alongside, caring not which flavor of memory will be summoned next.

Association is capricious, predicting when it might surface is a chancy thing.  A tendril of wood smoke on the air, the whiff of a cologne or perfume, the refrain of a favorite though forgotten song, the roll of the ocean or cry of gulls – simple, daily sensations that could be seared permanently into the recesses of your mind simply by adding enough trauma or enough joy.  Days on a calendar, seasons of the year, holidays with now-specific significance, brought forth in splendid relief or ruined forever in the space of a heartbeat.

I love autumn, it is far and away my favorite season and has retained that spot my entire life.  I love the turning of the wheel, the earth settling to sleep, the blazes of color that come with the land’s spectacular death knell.  I got engaged under a spectacular blue sky in autumn, my son learning to say “trick-or-treat,” my daughter’s first horse show, the list of my favorite sights and smells of autumn is long and boring to anyone but myself. 

The cusp of autumn also represents the time of year when my notion of family fell apart. 

It is standing in the heat of a late August afternoon, staring blankly at the trees and noticing that the leaves were just starting to change - as I listened to the tremor in my father’s voice as he told me my brother had died.

Autumn is the sound of my mother screaming at my father, demanding that he go buy her more wine – trying desperately and deliberately to use the same measures that took her son to drown out the pain of his loss.

Autumn is listening to the strain in my husband’s voice as he made one of the hardest decisions in his life – then watching him be vilified for it by his own children and never once being given the chance to explain … and being unable to stop it.

Autumn is the last time I saw the first two children of my heart, the ones that I accepted unconditionally fourteen years ago and remained content being relegated to the background for.

Autumn is the first time that I had to look at my own children and listen to the question, “When are we going to see them again? “ 

“Mommy doesn’t know.  They don’t want to see us right now and that is their choice.”

Autumn is the beginning of coming to grips with the fact that for whatever the reason, my little ones and I have been discarded – tossed carelessly aside as if we never existed.  That because of skew and bias and bureaucracy, bundled with base concepts like greed, anger and retribution, what I thought made up my family was shredded and consigned to picking up scraps and trying to heal undeserved wounds. 

I look at the changing leaves and it takes me back to last October, sitting in a hayride with my family … all of my children.  The late afternoon sun is slanting over cornfields; the track taking us through some hokey Halloween attractions nestled in the fields along the trail.  The kids are flushed and laughing, bouncing on the hay bales.  The sun is warm and the air smells like fall, apples and pumpkins, warm sweaters and crunchy hay.  It is the quintessential autumn day.

What autumn leaves behind breaks my heart.

Over The Fence

This is Meredith on Te, winning her first show.

Several months ago, my little girl rode in her second "competition" today, every few months the stable hosts a Barn Show so the students can learn how to compete and show off their skills.  The parents show up and take pictures and it's basically the horsey version of a dance recital.  The little ones start off in "lead line" classes, where their instructor leads their mounts through their paces and basically they judged for the ability to stay upright.  Meredith won her first blue ribbon a couple of months ago, sitting straight and proud on a half-ton of lazy brown horse.

That's right, I said a half-ton.  It's one thing to look at smiling pictures of giggling children on pony rides, it's quite another to wrap your head around the fact that there is very real risk in little girls on big horses.  I do not allow her to do it because it's cool, or fashionable, or because it's what little girls should do.  I allow it because she has sincere love for the animals, because it teaches her responsibility and partnership and having respect for other creatures. 

I do it because a lifetime ago it was my life as well, long days filled with the stamp of hooves and the smell of fresh hay and oiled leather.  Before there were ambulances in my life there was horses - stocky Quarter horses, athletic Thoroughbreds, graceful Arabians and everything in between.  Barrel races and long summer afternoons spent daydreaming, sprawled across the sun-warmed back of an old draft horse as it grazed its way across a green pasture.  Most don't know that about me.

Now my little girl is up there, and instead of being beside her I'm relegated to my position with the other parents - on the other side of the fence.  It's a very hard place to be.  You want so much to protect them from anything that will hurt or scare them, to let them float in this protective bubble of love and happiness that exists nowhere in this life.  Instead I put a helmet covered with hearts and cartoon ponies on her beautiful blonde head and send her off with breath held and fingers crossed that I am doing the right thing.  More than most I know how fast everything can change, a misplaced hoof, a shadow that spooks, gone in seconds from joyful ride to tragedy ... and still I let her go, even when inside I'm in knots.

As I watched the warm-ups this morning, she took her sweet time on the long way around the ring.  It was one of those moments you stare at extra hard, trying to imprint the visual image on your brain forever, knowing you will fail.  I could never fully relay to you how beautiful it was, this autumn vignette of a small golden haired girl on beautiful white horse.  A sunlit halo around them both in the cool early morning air as they meandered along, the rolling landscape behind them spectacular with the russet palette of fall.  There is nothing like the Northeast in fall, as if someone dragged a paint-soaked brush in random swaths of red and gold and orange.  On the far side of the ring, she was so far away from me and I was torn in two.  I'm so proud of how much she can do and yet I know every success pulls her from me, just a little bit.  I bite my lip and hold my position on my side of the fence.

This is her first show without a lead line, she'll be out there all by herself.  I watch her steer Cloud around the ring, carefully listening to the judges instructions.  It's not easy, the riders are young and the horses tend to do their own thing.  She walks away from her first class with second place and a loudly cheering family.  One more class to go.

Not twenty minutes later she was face down in the dirt of the competition ring.  Cloud was ancy all morning, she just had a tough time keeping him straight.  He acted up in the ring, she got frightened and lost her stirrup, sliding sideways and hitting the ground ... it's so far away for a little girl.  Embarrassed and scared, she let go of the reins and when she could regain her wind howled her indignity at the Fates as the class ground to a halt.  I had seen the whole thing from my vantage point on the wrong side of the fence and knew that her injuries, if any, included her considerable pride and not things like her liver or spleen.

I wanted to climb that fence so badly, never in my life have a fought an urge that strong.  To run to her across the ring and scoop her out of the dirt, to tell her that it's alright and that none of it was her fault and everything would be ok.  That's what mothers are supposed to do, I believe we are hardwired for it.

I did not climb that fence, I did not even express upset - other spectating parents were more visibly concerned than I was.  It was so hard, watching her get up and knowing she was embarrassed.

My fists were so tight that my palms were riddled with red crescents, reminders of how hard I was pressing my nails into the skin.  I held my ground, even as I was assessing her for injuries from a distance.  The owner of the stable collected her and lifted her over the fence, saying soothing phrases to her and telling her that she did not have to get back on today if she did not want to.  He is a good man, and was concerned for his own reasons as well as hers.  I finally let my breath out and collected her from him, she was on my side of the fence again.

I held her tight, catching her sobs in my hair as my hands quietly ran over her in a subtle inspection.  Yes I knew she was alright but there is always that small chance ...

Cloud stood passively, unattended, head down and tail swishing slowly - waiting for direction, unconcerned with the drama surrounding his sidestepping reaction to some minor upset.

Meredith continued to sob indignantly, announcing that she would never get on him again and she wanted to go home.  The owner assured her quietly that she did not have to do anything she did not want to.  I stopped them both.

She had to go back in.  To ride a horse is to enter into a partnership, an agreement, a mutual responsibility that needs to exist in order to succeed.  She was responsible for him, even if he let her down it did not mean she could fail on her part of the agreement.  She cried louder as I told her what she had to do, but now she would turn and sneak looks at poor old Cloud and you could see that she understood what I was saying.  Shame and responsibility are big concepts for such a little girl, it was like placing a burden on her you did not know she would be able to take.

I think perhaps one of the hardest things I have ever done was to pick her up and place her, still crying, back over the fence.  She clung to me, not wanting to face her failure.  I understood oh I so understood, but I also knew that she would have to learn that she could fail and come out alright and that Mommy does not know any other way to be.

So it was that my little girl trudged through the dusty ring, tears streaming down her cheeks.  She gathered up Cloud's reins and looked up at him for a moment.  Sniffling loudly, she patted his nose and with that small motion forgave him.  Then without another word or assistance, she lead him from the ring with all the dignity a five year old can muster - to the resounding applause of the other riders and the audience outside of the ring.

I hid my tears from her and told her how proud I was of her.  How everyone falls and that it is not the fall, it is how you pick yourself up after that matters.  What I could not say to her is that fence will always be there. That it will grow higher and harder to climb over as time and experience pulls her further and further into that ring.  That someday Mommy will not be able to reach her over that fence but maybe, just maybe, I will have taught her enough to get herself safely back out of that ring with grace and dignity.

Someday she will learn that being on the other side of the fence is the hardest place to be.