Today, my children played with a pile of leaves for an hour and a half, and it was glorious.
We have been doing a lot of leaf blowing in our neighborhood. My husband blows ours into the street every night for city pickup. But three houses down from us, they made a lead pile under their tree. And it is a magnet for playful kids.
We got home from doing errands today abd they kids were cranky and red-cheeked. They had eaten ice cream, candy, and chips and were fighting.
After I parked, I told them they could go play in the lead pile. I can see it from my front steps and could hear the girls from in our house. I knew the neighbors wouldn’t mind, but I still wanted to keep my kids under my watch.
They immediately changed from grumpy to gleeful as they jumped around, throwing leaves into the air and at each other.
I texted the neighbor and within a minute her kids were out playing in the leaves, too.
A minute afterward, my neighbor came out of the house with a rake. Not to stop the spread of leaves, but to make it deeper and fresher to play in.
When a neighbor in between us got home, their son came running out of the house to play in the leaves. She also joined our impromptu leaf-pile party!
My neighbor who lives across the street and has no children was out walking his dog. They came out and the kids played with the dog while the grown-ups talked.
The kids played hide-and-seek, threw leaves at each other, threw leaves at us civilized adults who all remember jumping into the leaf pile as kids. It was a great time! Our kids got to get out some energy and we all got some relaxed adult conversation.
To anyone passing by, it was a gathering of friends and neighbors. To me, it was a delight to introduce me neighbors to each other. Our houses are all within shouting distance from each other, yet the 6 other people had never met. I was happy to see that change.
Thanks to a pile of leaves, there are 10 new connections among these 3 households. And that is worth more than getting the leaves taken away in the street, any day of the week.