It's Mum Season

Fall in Central Texas is really, really...not that different from the other three seasons. Most of the trees don't change colors, but the daily temperatures fall from "Melt Everything" down to a balmy "Reasonably Warm".  If you did not have access to a calendar it would be December, and you wouldn't even know it.  But there are some things that definitely delineate the fall season in the Lone Star State from any other time of year.  While driving to work this morning, I realized that it’s Mum season. 

No Mums? No Worries!

Yep. Mum season.

At high schools throughout the state, millions of highly decorated mums show up on the chests and sleeves of middle and high school students. A few colleges, too.  Since I did not attend high school in the Lone Star state, I can only stare with bemusement.  It’s a big deal on the social calendar in Texas.

It is also a big deal for florists, crafty moms, and the local economy.  The weeks before the big Homecoming game, little roadside booths seem to rise up out of the ground like weeds, filled with brightly colored silk flowers and ribbons, in a variety of styles.


Cash only, of course.

Just about every single girl comes to school wearing at least one mum. If they don't have a boyfriend, their parents chip in for one, so their daughter won't be a social pariah.  The more popular girls may have their entire front covered with flowers, ribbons displaying school colors, tiny bells and other glorious fanfare. How on earth some of these girls can stand upright is a mystery.  Even the boys participate, wearing smaller versions on their arms with pride.  Mums are worn all day the Friday before the Homecoming game.  Then worn to the games.  Some wear their mums to the Homecoming dance, because their parents had a fit about the cost.  Some go really fancy and wear an entirely different mum to the dance. 

And after the day, the game, the dance?

The flowers die, and the ribbons get put away in the back of the closet or hung from the bedroom mirror.  It's time to put away childish things, and focus on life, not frivolity. 

Back to the grindstone.

At least until the next Mum Season.

Coming Home

The Matriarch, Granny Wilkerson, only stirred the iron cauldron once a year, but the spell she cast with those unknown spices was legendary magic. Her intangible whispered chants, wrapped in the golden warmth of a comforting aroma, wafted far afield, and found each of the sisters where ever they happened to be. Whatever their differences, the Matriarch was cheerfully obeyed.  None of the Wilkerson daughters had the magic or the will to resist the Matriarch, anyway.

All thirteen sisters felt the pull within their core, the urgent need to find their way home.  One by one, the spell found them, drew them in.  Cadence Wilkerson was in Paris, passing the time at a street cafe, when the rosemary essence of her home seemed to surround her in loving arms.   Rhyme Wilkerson paused in mid-lecture to inhale deeply before dismissing her class for the remainder of the day.  Treble Wilkerson awoke from a coma with the taste of home on her tongue. Mezzo Wilkerson was waiting to summit Mount Everest.  

Old animosities faded, old hurts healed, not so new slights were forgotten. Only Adagio Wilkerson noted the passing of those negative emotions within her, and smiled as she felt the familiar anger melt away.  As often as they argued, as much as they fought, the sisters were bound by blood. Family was everything. None of them ever felt as safe, as protected, as when all of them were gathered in Granny's kitchen, surrounding the cauldron as it boiled, the steam pinking their faces.  No toil and trouble, no sturm und drang.  There was only laughter, love, and the fierce magic that only family can conjure.

Granny was waiting for them, they knew. It was time to go home.





The prompt is the third definition of MELT.