The colors roasting in the oven are the same as the ones fading outside my window. Red beets, orange sweet potatoes, green herbs softly turning brown.
Fall is here, and I am celebrating with a autumn breakfast, a harvest I did not plant, grow, or pick. My talents have always seemed to involve baking the bread to go on the side of the plate rather than coaxing the carrots to grow and claim their place in the center, so I rely on the skills of others.
The bacon now is sizzling on the stove. The sun has started to shine over the mountains, the leaves illuminated as they catch its rays, and my sons are beginning to rub sleep from their eyes. It is only morning, and already I long to hold onto this day, a day I did not create.
“We plant the seeds that one day will grow…. We are prophets of a future not our own.” These were the words written on the wall of the first home my husband and I shared together, painted by former residents to remind us that we do not have to do everything on our own. And that is our blessing – that we cannot.
I scrape the discarded peels into the compost bucket as news of the latest election scandal drones on in the background. This is my children’s world. What inheritance are we creating for them?
I am harvesting a world I did not plant and planting seeds I will not sow, hoping that one will yield more than the other.
Jackie Semmens 