THANKFUL FRIDAY
Cindy Maddera
The yard behind my house is home to two giant and ancient oak trees and every year, all of the leaves from those trees land in my backyard. My backyard is surprising large for the size of my house. You could fit another house back there and in fact, we’ve toyed with the idea of extending the house into the backyard. Open up the kitchen. Add on a master bed and bath. We could do this but have yet to find the right financial motivation to actually do this. Any way, my giant backyard ends up completely covered in a layer of oak leaves at the end of every Fall. I leave them there until the Spring and then mulch them with the mower, but sometimes I think about raking them up into one giant pile. Then I’d host a leaf jumping party where people could throw themselves into the pile of leaves.
A thing I never did as a kid.
Oklahoma is not know for it’s tall ancient trees. The land is prairie with low, wind tolerant trees or invasive cedar. If we had piles of anything to jump into it was usually hay. Every Halloween, the town I grew up in would have Halloween activities at our tiny fairgrounds. There were the usual games like bobbing for apples, but there was also the game of finding money in a haystack. I only have vague memories of getting to dive into the hay bale to search for coin because every time I’d do it, I’d come out itchy and sneezy. The next day would find me at my pediatrician’s office covered in hives and getting an allergy shot. But I’ve seen people, children, on TV jumping into giant leaf piles and have always thought “What carefree joy!”
I do not rake the backyard. Sure, part of it is laziness, but it really is better for the environment to leave them. Also, I have no doubts that jumping in a leaf pile would be just like jumping into the hay bale. I will end up in urgent care covered in hives. Instead, I just stare out my kitchen window and marvel at the amount of leaves that can come from one tree. At first, I started thinking of those leaves as moments in time that I have squandered this year. It’s already December and I feel like I didn’t do much of anything this year except complain. I spent almost the whole first half of the year stressed about my job and depressed by a feeling of hopelessness for the fate of science in this country, really for the fate of everything good in this country. It took me a while to just accept that there is very little I can do on a grand scale. There is a lot I can do on a local scale. It’s taken me a while to reconcile with a government that gives zero shits about it’s citizens, but planning an eventual retirement outside of this country has actually helped to lift my spirits.
I feel a little bad for my grouchy attitude this year.
December tends to be a month of reflection and a time for thinking about what’s next. In reflecting on this past year, I will not apologize for my grouchy attitude. When we talk about living authentically it does not mean to only live authentically happy and optimistic all the the time. I lived authentically this year, not masking my grouchy feelings. I am deserving of that attitude because while that grouch has been out, the sunny side of myself has been resting. Those who truly know me, know that I tend to lean in to a Pollyanna state of mind and I will own that I am generally a bright, optimistic bouncy ball. But you should know that maintaining that state of being can be exhausting. I’m waving the white flag now and saying that this year has been a challenge.
Those leaves are now currently buried under a layer of snow. You can see bits of them poking through here and there. If you took a cross-section of my yard it would resemble a seven layer bean dip or some pudding/jello layered dessert. My life is a simple life. Even so, it is layered with all kinds of feelings and moments of feeling. Just like my backyard or that seven layer bean dip. I’m thankful for all of the layers. The layer of leaves are not squandered moments of time. They’re just a layer of leaves and as I look back on this year, I’ll think of 2025 as the year I allowed myself live authentically even if it wasn’t always pretty.
