Yellow Maples.

I have always let people blame the colour thing on why I don't enjoy fall. It's an explanation I give myself because I really never can explain why I hate the season. I can see yellow as most of you know (and the rest of you may have presumed). In the fall, you do get yellow leaves. Is it neat to see yellow things on the trees? No.

There is a certain smell in the air.. it hasn't quite set in yet. Perhaps the bulk of that scent is based on the dead/rotting leaves.

The next anniversary of my move to the US is coming up soon in a few more days.

I left Africa in the very end of winter. Things were showing signs of beginning the almost instantaneous switch back on to life. I moved here in the fall (or autumn, as I knew it then). It was a particularly cold fall (well.. thats how it felt then). It must have been quite a cold one, because it wasnt long at all until we were able to see snow.

But backtracking.. that first weekend included a day in the car for a drive. Wasnt unusual to do before, and not after either. But this one was supposed to be special because it was supposed to be one of the most beautiful days for fall folliage. So I at in that 1984 Toyota Camry.. brown to my mother's huge distaste.. looking out the window. Looking where mom pointed.. a mirror on the telephone pole here, a pretty area there.. I think I may have been angry that day.

To backtrack a bit more.. I left at the latter half of the school year in Africa. I wasn't really old enough to have any real friends (Remember when one of your mom's friends would come over, with her son too.. and the kid would stand in front of you, and you'd say something like "Wanna see my room?".. then you'd go over and, in my case, play marbles, try to catch the cat, or play with thundercats figures. If only that line worked now on girls my current age. Hell.. if I had to, I'd play with kids toys again.). But I didnt know that then. So when I heard we were goign to America, while at first I was thrilled, I started to not want to go more and more. I was thrilled at first because of other kids at school having wonderful stories about america. It took me a while to realize that moving there means not being able to go back and share the stories. The real crunch point was thinking back to the months before, when my parents had gone over to visit (and my father to interview for jobs).. well.. they told me it was only a visit then I think. I hated them being away and leaving my brother and I would some other family (a doctor and his wife (my mom's friend), and they had a daughter my age.. the wife bought us goldfish.. i also remmeber my allowance from then.. it was around 2 Rand a week. Today, that would be about twenty-five american cents. If you go to South Africa today, 2R will buy you a 10 or 12 oz coke (depending).

Anyway.. back to my fall issue. Adding onto all this were my last few days of school there. My best friend cried.. and at school.. and it wasnt like were were 5 years old or something.. so he may have been beat up for that. Made me feel so bad.

So getting here put me into a daze.. mainly because I was upset.

Now.. when I started writing all of this, I was thinking along the lines of me being angry/upset and then not liking fall.. but I can't think of why. Its the smell that really makes me hate it too tho.