Autumn Pumpkins

 Fall is my very favorite season. Granted, when I live where are seasons, I say every season is my favorite, especially in the first month or so of that season, but I do really think fall is my favorite with the crispness in the air, the diffused light, and the slight chill in the morning. Fall was what I pined for in living within spitting distance of the equator as well as all the things that come with it, trips to the pumpkin patch and apple orchard, reviewing one's sweater and hat inventory (just in case some knitting needs to happen), even the beginning of school (it's still hard for me to get out of September without buying a notebook or two) and having to slow down in a school zone during daytime hours (even though admittedly in the Spring that will drive me crazy).
         So we were not in Portland long before Kent, my mother and I decided it was time for Fyo to visit his first pumpkin patch - and the pumpkin patch that all Portland tots go to and the pumpkin patch I went to as a child out on Sauvie's Island.
       I love Portland, but even growing up, I knew I wanted to live my adult life somewhere else, that I didn't want to be one of those people whose children went to the same schools as they did (even though I do find something kind of cool about that - it's just not something I want for Fyo, and it's not something I can really explain). So I was surprised by my own excitement at having Fyo go to my childhood haunts, at having pictures of both of us as children in the same place.
     As we walked across the field on our morning expedition - all of us in sweaters that we would eventually peel off as it would warm up to Indian summer weather by noon - and I watched Fyo run ahead to the tractor he saw sitting alone in a field, I considered that maybe part of my wanting a home is wanting the yearly family traditions that come with a home. Not all the traditions, just the comforting ones and the ones that include foods that I like.

This too surprised me, as I am not the most traditional of people. Generally, I find traditions problematic, because, well, they're traditional. People do and follow them without thinking, and then defend traditions - even wildly outdated and discriminatory ones - by saying they are traditional. This somehow makes them good and superior to new ideas and forward thinking.
    
And I don't know that a yearly trip to the pumpkin patch will become tradition in our family, but it felt good. I remembered that I can enjoy the sun - when it is that Fall light, when the sun is no longer directly overhead beating down on you, when the days have started to grow shorter. I remembered how much I love the feel of the Pacific NW air on my skin, that the corner of the earth where I come from is glorious, that just because I don't want to live here, doesn't mean I won't return often. And I remembered that home, at least the one you came from, can nourish you before you take the next step forward.