revisiting the rake

i dont know if it can solely be chalked up to living in california or it has more to do with our house simply not having a single deciduous tree, but prior to coming to chile, i hadn't raked a leaf in something like 8 or 9 years. during some onces (dinner... or the meal that should be dinner but usually leaves something to be desired) one night back in march, erwin (host father) jokingly said i wasn't allowed to go out that weekend unless i raked the leaves. i threw down the standard chuckle and then mentioned that i would be glad to rake the leaves every tuesday and thursday since i don't work on said days. he didn't believe me, but agreed nonetheless.

i kept true to my promise and have been raking the maple leaves (coincidence?) of our front yard tree since. setting aside the massive piles of dog shit that repeatedly seemed to take shelter on the mini-lawn, i found an unparalleled sense of solace long forgotten while raking the leaves of canada's national tree. i was reminded of the sundays of my youth, when nimesh and i would get out into our beast of a backyard with two rakes and create massive piles of leaves to jump into until the sun said goodnight. i was reminded of the beauty of seasons in our tiny patch of poop-laden grass - the odors, the colors, the textures - treasures i sometimes miss in california. sadly, all good things must come to an end. as winter rapidly approaches, there's hardly a leaf left to attend to. my days of revisiting the rake are coming to a close. i can pretty much pick up the tree's droppings with my hands on my way to the trash bin now. long gone are the days of deftly maneuvering through wet piles of shit to gather leaves into a plastic bag. long gone are the days of reliving my youth. time to find a new, inevitably less satisfying chore.