Samir Shukla
By Samir Shukla
You can do it! The mother said to her son. She gave him a look of confidence. It was an early autumn morning, but the sun still sizzled. The boy looked at his mother and then looked up at the one leaf on the tree that had turned bright yellow. He wanted this colorful leaf, but it was out of his reach. I was standing nearby waiting for someone and happened to observe the scene.
The leaves on the tree were still green, except this early fall bloomer, its bright yellow color made it stand out, as if it was ready to disengage from the tree and fall to the ground. I can imagine that may have been the first leaf to sprout in the spring and now it was the first one to change color.
The boy jumped up and down several times, his right arm outstretched and ready to grab the leaf with every bounce. If only he could get a hold of it. He walked away a few feet and got a running start and jumped up just under the leaf and still no luck.
He looked around and found a stick lying under another nearby tree. He picked it up and tried to knock the leaf down with it. No luck. He looked at his mom as if to tell her to pick the leaf for him. C’mon mom, you’re tall enough. Grab it. I want it. He didn’t say it out loud but asked with his eyes and expression. The mother encouraged him. Jump a little higher, she said. You can do it. You can figure it out.
The kid finally gripped the stick at one of the ends, walked away a few feet, began skipping and jumped up at the right moment to strike the leaf and it finally swirled down onto the ground. He picked it up and presented it to his mother. A child’s version of a bouquet of flowers. The mother and child melted in an embrace.
I’ve always loved children’s skipping walks, bouncing along with each step. This time of year, summer ending and autumn stirring, is akin to a child’s jumps and skips. Ups and downs. You have blazing heat one day and cool days and nights for a day or two and then the heat comes fighting back. Wear shorts or grab a sweater? This becomes a quandary during these days.
Summer is the most grounding and joyous part of the year for me. When the first signs of summer ending arrive, like changing leaves, I feel a stitch of sadness. I also love the bookend seasons of fall and spring, primarily because they wrap their unique glories around sweet summertime tucked in between.
When I got home later that day, I thought of the jumps and skips of children. How kids when they are at a certain age, they sometimes do the skip dancing when walking, and if a parent is holding their hand, the skips become more pronounced, as if they are ready to unlatch from the grip. This first bright yellow leaf of incoming fall on this tree swayed in the breeze and was just waiting for someone to skip and jump and help it release from the tree’s grip and float down with an aerial dance.
It would have had to wait for a windy day, but the boy’s joyful skipping and stick maneuver did the trick.
While the sun began its descent that evening I stood among a grove of trees in our backyard, found a stick lying on the ground, and spotted an early fall leaf that had changed color but was dangling out of my reach on a tree.
I walked back a few steps, took a skipping jog and with a properly timed hop was rewarded with a bouquet in the guise of a colorful leaf.
Yes, it was just a pretty leaf, one of many to change in the coming days and weeks on the surrounding trees. But for a moment I felt a joy that I’m sure that kid felt.
Later, lying in bed, I closed my eyes and thought of my childhood days in India. Recalling the simple fun of sticks and marbles, jumping on dirt mounds, finding things laying around and turning them into play. I remembered my own unchoreographed skip walking.
I drifted into sleep and dreamt of the jumps and skips and falls seesawing between that one of a childhood in the semi-arid land of Gujarat to the lush foliage of the small farm homestead in North Carolina that we call home today. The dream played out in my mind all through that night. I awoke to a cool morning thinking it looks like a sweater day and observed that several trees had batches of leaves now wearing different colors. A transformation that happened in the night. Maybe I’ll grab a stick and knock a few more down.
In the meantime, thanks kid, wherever you are right now, for rekindling the fading memories of my own childhood’s jumps, skips, and falls.
Samir Shukla is the Editor of Saathee Magazine.
Contact: samir@saathee.com
X: @ShuklaWrites
Newsletter: ShuklaWrites.Substack.com
