"FALL LEAVES"

For as long as I can remember, I have loved finding beautiful fall leaves.

It's like picking up seashells at the beach: You find one you love and then another and another until your arms are heavy laden with them. But leaves

aren't heavy like seashells and I am always on the quest to find perfectly shaped ones and those of brilliant colors.

When I was little, I would make a leaf notebook: Inside I would paste leaves I loved and then look at them. Of course over a period of time, their beautiful colors would fade and I'd put that aside till the next fall.

I no longer make leaf notebooks but I sure do pick up those gorgeous leaves.

The brilliant ones appeal to me as I'm sure they would to anyone. But what do I do with them? I stack them up and bring them inside to look at their soon to be gone beauty. Casting those aside, I am out on the quest for more and mostly just leave them on an outside table by my front door and they are carried away by the wind. And where do they wind up? They scatter here and there in my yard along with the ten thousand maple leaves that fall from my tree. And then they are hidden and forgotten.

By that time, I am back out in the street looking for more perfectly shaped leaves or the brightly colored ones. I've used them in artworks by applying acrylic paint to them and using them like a rubber stamp: Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But do I worry about that? No, because there is an overload of leaves all around me for the choosing and for that, I count myself lucky.

What's not to love about fall leaves? And when their color is gone, they have a wonderful smell that only can be experienced to describe. But once you have smelled that smell, you never forget it ever. It loads up your senses to the max of past falls and childhood memories.

As long as the magnificent colored leaves are outside, I will be there too. I'm a creature of habit and this is one habit that costs nothing and makes me feel fulfilled. Sometimes the best things in life are like that--costing us nothing but rewarding us ten-fold. Catch the fall leaves while you can! I will be.

Sherry Hill