Fall-ing

These fall days are just gorgeous. The air is crisp and cool and all I want to do is sit on my porch swing and watch the sun turn the green leaves to gold. But instead, I greet first graders with a smile and a cup of coffee, sign progress reports for my seventh grade, dyslexic son, stand on the sidelines and watch my daughter march by backwards - directing the band with sharp movements and high steps, and listen to my husband as he exudes about this year's basketball prospects. Between lesson plans and football games and fall festivals and sports practices and sunny days and cool nights...I feel the downward pull of the coming winter. A time that's never not been hard for me.
So I grasp the tiny moments that make my life full and meaningful.
My beautiful girl, talking non-stop about her school day as her long legs extend far beyond mine on the footstool, waving around the Wildcat seat cushion she was awarded for being chosen Student of the Month.
My sweet boy, plopping down beside me after practice, enveloping me in a wave of "outside boy" smell...and later cooking himself three eggs with the spatula he modified by wrapping a dishcloth around the handle and securing it with a rubber band so it would never get too warm. Then later, giving me a squeeze and a kiss on the cheek that I barely felt because I fell asleep while he was still watching "How It's Made" in my bedroom.
My husband, smiling with a glint in his eye as he reminds me that BOTH kids go to youth now, and we are home alone for a couple of hours on a Wednesday night. Eating two helpings of my bland, first-try chicken pot pie and proclaiming it tasty...with enough salt.
These are the things that are easily missed in the shortened days and busy schedules...the loads of laundry and empty fridge...the homework and ungraded papers. But I've learned to look. I've learned to see. And that is the difference between falling and functioning.