It looked like that time my little brother dripped blue food colouring into his milk.  The sky, I mean.  Watery white with squiggles of blue.

  And the trees around me were neonized, as if the Tree Painter had just discovered that autumn was the best time to display his art in the gallery of the world.  
  Vancouver in the autumn.  The autumn in Vancouver.

  Lazily, I stood up and brushed leaf-crumbs off my jeans.  Down I tugged the sleeves of my hoodie and buried my chin in my scarf.  My red scarf.  My happy scarf.  Everyone should have at least one article of clothing that makes them happy...and I was happy.  Happiness is such a yummy feeling.  I almost felt that I could close my eyes, open my mouth, and gulp in the liquid sun and the crispy air, the painted leaves and the vibes of joy all around.

  Except then, of course, no one except me would be able to enjoy the day; so I closed my mouth and opened my eyes.  Eyes, after all, do a very passable imitation of drinking in beauty.

  I went down a pathway.  Not went, my English teacher would say.  Wandered.  Meandered.  Meandered has a deliciously slow, serendipitous feeling to it.  So I meandered.

  Ahead of me, a dad and his son were pulling a pile of leaves into an enormous heap.  The dad held up his hand as I approached.

  “You hafta watch this!” he shouted.

  The little boy gave me a delighted grin.  He dropped his rake, tripped over his feet, picked himself up, and ran up the hill.  Then down he tumbled, eyes shining, and whooshed into the pile of leaves.  Everywhere, orangeness and redness and browness went flying.  Proudly, his dad took a photo on his camera phone, then turned to me.

  “You wanna do it too?”

  I paused.  Then smiled.  Then laughed.  What the heck, why not?

  At the top of the hill, I discarded my purse.  I felt the sun turning my hair red and my eyes neon blue.  I stretched out my arms.  Then I cascaded into the leafyness, laughing like a kid.

  “All right, all right then, great!”  The dad’s camera phone flashed a few more times, catching me in my hideous but typical laughing-with-mouth-open pose.  I felt like yelling to the world that this was autumn, this was what it was all about.  Leaves sticking to your hair, frayed jeans, the smell of blackberries, and love for everything.  And everyone.  And everyone’s everything.

  “I wanna rake more leaves, dad!”   The kid rushed in, carrying a rake larger than he was.  It teetered dangerously towards me as I retrieved myself from the leaf-pile.

  “Excellent, excellent!”  The dad was smiling at everyone who had paused to watch.  Briefly, I wondered if he ever stopped smiling.  Permanent smile, only $10.99 at your local dollar store, my mind began to mumble nonsensically.  Autumn always makes me nonsensical.  Which is probably why, as I walked away, I began imagining a conversation between the trees and the pathway.  The pathway was annoyed because the trees refused to keep their leaves to themselves, and the trees were annoyed because they couldn’t believe anything could dislike their leaves....

  But that’s another story.  And there’s all of autumn to tell it.