Pumpkin Soup

I’ve been down this road before, but this year has been like none other. Still, we did our best to keep to some of our traditions, bringing home pumpkins from a local farm and placing them on the front porch to mark the fall harvest.

They lasted through Thanksgiving. When we saw one beginning to deteriorate, I moved it into the woods for our wildlife neighbors. The other pumpkin was holding its own, and my wife brought it inside and made a wonderful soup with many different seasonings.

Sometimes I find myself looking for underlying connectors between myself and the natural world. As I finish the last of the pumpkin soup, I’m aware of those occasional moments of clarity when, as John Prine sang in his last recorded song, “I remember everything.”

Every tree and every blade of grass are committed to my memory, every joy and every sadness. The joys and sadness, it seems to me, tie us together in our humanness. Even a perfect storm of pandemic and politics run amuck could never change that.

My experience is not unique. I remember first kisses, sledding on a moonlit night with my young son, the generosity of strangers, the mystery of snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the eternal sound of breakers crashing on the shore. Happily, the joys outweigh the sadness.

The connectors, it turns out, are everywhere to be found when I see with my heart, taking care not to “let my past go sneaking up on me.” In my mind’s eye, I remember every tree, every single blade of grass, and every soup my brown-eyed girl has made for me.