Fall is the time of year when I feel like I can relax a little bit. Take stock of what I have and appreciate what is in my life. The season of harvest, plenty, goodness and feasting. Time to make big pots of soup, fill the large casserole dishes with warm, nutritious ingredients to pop in the oven. A time to get out the oversized sweaters made with bulky, luxurious yarn, and to pull out the ample, hefty afghans and quilts.
The pattern in the fabric of these aprons makes me think of abundance and bounty, as later summer and early fall is the time of harvest for grapes in the wine industry, They remind me of what I consider 'good times'. Times of fruitfulness and well-being.
Growing up, I always felt like we had everything we needed. Now that I am older, and am looking back, I realize that those years weren't plentiful in the usual sense of abundance of money or 'things' (although at the time I didn't know that, because we always seemed to have all we needed. Maybe I just didn't know how to ask for what I didn't know I could have if I had asked!)
But for sure my home was filled with plenty of love, laughs, good friends, lots of relatives and an abundance of fun. And when you think about it, after having 'enough' of the basics in life, what more do you need? And to be clear, I am more than grateful and thankful for my family always having at least the basics.
Some of my most vivid, warm, happy, cozy, this-is-all-I-need memories as a child, was watching reruns of the TV show I Love Lucy with my mom and siblings. I remember my Mom would pull over a basket-type chair into the middle of the living room, turn on our black-and-white TV at 10:00 am and settle in with all of us little kids to get ready for some laughs. Which Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel never failed to deliver on! Then halfway through the show, Mom would get up, put on one of her many aprons and bring us our 'Lucy Snack' which was usually two graham cracker squares and a small glass of milk. What more did a little kid need at that moment? The snack filled my tummy and the love, laughs, closeness and good times filled my soul.
And I'm just realizing as I'm writing this, that I eat at least a square of graham cracker almost every day! Guess you never outgrow that need to feel taken care of and as if, at a single moment in time, you have all that you really need.