A week or so ago, I stood outside my tiny house beside my aging Toyota RAV4 and thought about leaves.  Across the gravel road on which my house sits, trees that have become as familiar to me as the Midwestern sunshine rose against the background of a lingering sunset.  Fierce gold had settled into gentle pink.  The outline of the trees against the whisper of retreating rays held me for a long, quiet moment.

I studied the sprinkle of crushed debris on the yard around me.  Those leaves fell from the California oak which towers over my neighbor’s house.  They dissolve into the dirt to feed the scraggly grass and the succulents that have broken through their pots and sent their roots into the soil.  I looked again towards the nearly bare branches, wondering why some leaves succumbed to winter’s hold and float to the ground while others stubbornly cling to their perch.

Today the world’s sports fans will watch two teams compete for the season’s title while I sit in my shop and think about anniversaries and celebrations.  In six day’s time, lovers and partners and spouses will exchange heart-shaped boxes of candy.  They will demurely lower their eyes as envelopes open and cards slide out.  Shy smiles will dawn as the scrawled messages get read aloud.  They will embrace and toast the endurance of their romance for yet another year.

For me, Valentine’s day holds bittersweet memories of a note  thrust into my hand right after the announcement of an impending departure.  But it has more hopeful meaning as well.  On 14 February 1997, I lay in a hospital bed beneath the dour gaze of a middle-aged  pulmonologist.  My neurologist stood beside him, shaking his small grey head and concurring in the lung guy’s pronouncement of my certain and hasty doom.  Six months, he had said.  Have you got someone prepared to take your child?  I had, several people; but I didn’t like to think about that eventuality.  I turned my head to the window, through which the grey light of a cold Kansas City day strained for entry.  Eventually, the two men left.

My son had started kindergarten that year.  On his first day, I struggled to lead him up the stairs from his pre-school to the august heights of a newly promoted elementary student.  He stopped halfway.  He drew his head back and said, Are you going to die before I get big, Mom? And I promised him that I would live to be one-hundred-and-three.  We continued our journey into his next phase of life while my heart sank and my anxiety blossomed.

But I did live.  Now John Prine plays on the Bluetooth speaker outside while my friend Moira arranges for a cup of Earl Grey from the coffee shop.  Little whisps of clouds drift past.  Occasionally snow geese or cranes cut across the blue.  Ruby brings an egg sandwich.  One or two customers, not yet settled at the bar for the game, wander into the store and peruse the art.  I sit and think, and sip my tea, and watch the shadows of paper cranes from the mobile in the corner dance across the ceiling.  John Prine keeps singing.  Cars go past.  The days of another year scatter at my feet, like the dry leaves that blow across the levee road at home.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®