17 Comments
Oct 18Liked by Toronto Ink Company

What a generous, poignant, authentic offering. Thank you.

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Oct 18Liked by Toronto Ink Company

Your papa sounds like a very special person. And it seems that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree🍎 or the fallen leaves from their original branches 🍂 thank you for this offering 🧡

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author

thank YOU for sharing, reading.

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Oct 18Liked by Toronto Ink Company

I feel a bit like one of the leaves floating to the ground. I'm hoping I'm a vibrant red leaf, with some bright yellow maybe. I hope I'm not a rusty-coloured, tattered leaf. I feel quite comfortable, floating on the breeze, a bit like a little boat, going where its supposed to go, on the current of the sky. I think I'll be okay, coming to rest, sandwiched between all the other leaves who have lived their lives this summer. Maybe we swap stories and then finally fall silent as we crumble or fall asleep under a blanket of snow. All the leaves of summer. Where do they go? Into nothingness, I guess, into mulch, into the future of another summer, doing their job of adding nutrients, first living, then floating, then dissolving. I hope I don't sound gloomy! I converse with leaves this time of year. I thank them for a lovely green swishy summer and tell them I'll miss them. And I save a few between the pages of a book. It is being a perfect fall and while I do enjoy the beauty, I fear the November and February of the future. I think it's time to write another book.

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Oct 18Liked by Toronto Ink Company

Thank you for this evocative vocabulary of images and words.

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Oct 18Liked by Toronto Ink Company

Tofu roast!!!

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author

yes!

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Love the whole essay in so many ways but had to look up tofu roast😂

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So much here to relate to. Please also know my oldest kid received your book for her birthday and is reading it before even thinking of doing any of the activities. Such is the imagination held there. Bravo.

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While the leaves are green and in place on branches and twigs still attached to trees, we note them. When they fall off and go through the changes in colour, we can’t get enough of how they speak to us. Your papa’s life experiences, while not being like the green leaves attached to trees exactly, (unless it is in the variety) the reading about, and possibly, the writing about, shows the extent of amazing colour in one person’s life that can affect one. It has taken me back through my own adventurous life and it could be considered that I am in my autumn years - hogwash.

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author

so true

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Hey Jason, love your Substack. I am wondering if you happen to know of a recipe or how to, for ink from the fruit of the opuntia cactus. I have collected a few “tunas”. Thank you

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for as hard it is to encapsulate autumn, the same for the emotions in this post. thank you

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founding

the way you listen - such attentiveness to the memories, but also to the color (of course) and texture and sound and flavor and aura. thank you for sharing, thank you for writing 🧡

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Beautiful - as ever - thank you.

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author

Thank you

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What a lovely homage to your Papa! Wonderful!

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