We story our lives, weaving the strange until it feels familiar. Strangers grow into friends. Places become home. Things take on meaning particular to our living. A back road becomes the setting for a story you love to tell that ends with the tow truck driver asking which of you is the U-boat captain. The woman you first saw wearing a pink sweater and brown boots in the college cafeteria becomes your wife. A shell carried from the beach on a Sunday afternoon becomes important enough to pack when you move away from your childhood home. The cemetery in town becomes the place where your friend is buried. 

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I was in elementary school in the 70s. Our street was a culdesac. My bike was a red Vista with monkey bar handles and a banana seat. There were nine of us under the age of twelve in the neighborhood. It was that time in life when summer felt like half of the year, snow meant sledding all day, and leaves were raked for jumping into.

The Steele’s lived at the bottom of the hill, and leaves rake easier down hill than up, so the curb in front of their house was where we built Leaf Mountain. Like a team of seasoned landscapers, we worked in shifts until the pile was eight bikes long and two bikes high.

We took turns racing down the hill and exploding into the pile at top speed to see who could plow through to the other side. We dragged each failed attempt out by the handle bars, the driver spitting leaves with everybody laughing. Then we rebuilt and signaled for the next pedlar. We worked at it all day long. 

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When our twins were waist high, fallen leaves meant pile diving. My rake transformed our leaf strewn yard into a pile ready to swallow anyone who dared to venture close. I can still hear their shrieks of laughter as they burst from the pile, leaves clinging to their knit hats and raised mittens, their mother ready with the camera.

A favorite picture of the twins that day hangs in our bedroom. The older one stands behind the younger one, and their heads rest against each other with the scattered pile behind them. One wears a penguin hat. One has shoulder length hair and a smile just as big.  

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After high school, fallen leaves meant reunion. No longer connected by the same school or team or neighborhood, Thanksgiving pulled us home. It was the Friday night of the year when we caravanned across beach parking lots. Our talk would begin with the usual favorites: the night we walked down the middle of the highway in the swirling snow laughing; the infamous water tower climb; and the night the cops finally found our bonfire. The old stories lead to new ones about places we had never been and people we did not know – making the outside world feel a little safer.

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Today I raked the yard; my wife at work and the twins at school. Just me and our dog. My bike stayed in the garage, nobody burst laughing from the pile, and there was no reunion. But for the whole afternoon I remembered the fallen leaves I had encountered and their stories about friendship, coming home, and being a dad. 

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Trees are a miracle.  They make the air we breathe. They ignite the woods with color each fall.  Their bare branches scratch gray winter skies. In spring they burst with the promise of summer. They stand witness to our generations. Imagine the stories they must tell.