There’s just something about raking leaves

There’s just something about raking leaves. Pretty, yellow, orange, once-upon-a-spring green, autumn leaves. Maybe it’s the joy in manual labor. Maybe it’s that raking involves neither a laptop screen nor organic chemistry. Maybe it’s the glorious return to being an oblivious suburban teenager doing chores around the house, watching my parents have cute petty arguments about picking the wrong tomatoes. Maybe it’s having the first real conversation with my father that I've had in a while. Maybe it’s the homo sapiens in me that rejoices at some faint notion of returning to some semblance of agriculture. Of living as one with nature instead of putting up walls to defend against it. Maybe it’s the wet, slightly mushy touch of the leaves that will turn mushier and mushier and "to dust you will return" and might make bright new green leaves someday. Maybe it's the satisfaction of finally seeing a task through from start to finish. Reaping the rewards of your efforts in twenty minutes. Oh instant gratification, thou art almost as pretty as these leaves. Maybe it’s that, in running the rake through the grass, cleaning up leaves that reveal the relatively groomed suburban front lawn, I fulfill some human tendency to create order.

Or maybe they’re just pretty leaves…