Fall

Last weekend, I walked through a little forrest near Apeldoorn, where the leaves were piled up to my knees. We had been inside for several days, partly because of our main reason of being there: rehearsing, and partly because of the rain. But on Sunday, the sun was shining. It was cold, in the late afternoon, but we were longing to go out. So we walked through the leaves, on invisible paths.

Sometimes, you find yourself in an old memory. It can be because of a smell or a sence. I suddenly walked through the forrest were I walked when I was six years old. Together with a friend who came for a sleep-over during the fall holidays. We were searching for acorns and leaves, to make little puppets when we got home. The sent of wet and yellowed leaves, the moss on old branches, the cold in the air, mushrooms on trunks.
But it was mostly that feeling: running through the piles of leaves, allowed to become dirty because you were wearing your old clothes, not knowing how big the forrest really was because you had no idea about the size of things in this world.

We didn't know about the scents, the feelings. Only now, more than twentyfive years later, was I able to put a feeling to a moment that existed long ago. And even though I now know about the moss, the wet leaves and the cold air, for a moment I felt the feeling of an endless week of vacation, running through leaves and how our feet disappeared between them.

All of this just flashed through my head in a few seconds. Then, I found myself in the forrest near Apeldoorn, searching for mushrooms with my friends.