When I was a young child before we moved back to my home state of Wisconsin, we lived in Memphis Tennessee.

While staying there I attended a small one story Montessori school shaped like an “L” that was nudged quietly away in a nice corner of the city. It was surrounded by a family of great trees that bore leaves the size of beach umbrellas to my young eyes. I don’t know what kind they were but they had the most beautiful large, flat leaves that when browned and tossed about crisply in the wind gave off the most radiant of colors and smells. Scents that I can still smell today, thousands of miles from my past.

Every fall when there had been enough leaves that had fallen, all the children at the school-under the supervision of the teachers and parents, raked up all the leaves into one giant pile that stood as tall as the building itself.

One by one we were taken by the hand, up the ladder and onto the roof. Ever so careful but filled with a near combustible glee, we teetered slowly to the edge of the roof. The last thing you saw before you turned your back, closed your eyes and fell were the smiling red faces of your classmates cheering you on. Moments later the embrace of the damp collection of leaves embraced your person, slowing your decent and safely bringing you to a halt. Immediately someone would grasp you up, placing you next to your friends just in time for you to turn and see the next kid take the plunge.

I don’t know why I choose to remember such things. Surely there are more important things for me to remember. But few are as nurturing to the soul. I relish in the discovery of things long ago forgotten. Anything can trigger it: a smell, a sound or song, a certain image.

One of the true beauties of life.

It can be a blessing and a curse, but even in those times when the memories that are conjured are not those most desired we can still take comfort that we have seen it through. I call it God, some would say fate or luck. Regardless, the fact that you’re around today reading this is all the proof I need.

I love this time of year.