Ah-CHOO!

As we enter the season of bonfires, roasted marshmallows, sitting in tree-stands or window-blinds, falling leaves painted with the colors of change, hoodies and boots, and homes decorated with pumpkins and fresh mums – we also enter the season of hay-fever.

I’ve had sinus/allergy problems since I was a small child, complete with eczema break-outs on my skin as well. My allergy list is long and consists of just as many foods as it does trees, flowers, and other outside elements.

I’ve been to several different allergists in my lifetime, because as anyone who suffers as I do know that your body changes over the years, sometimes accepting of things it wasn’t before, and just as many times, adding more unacceptable / “can’t do” new items to your list.

One of the best things I came to love after moving here, was upon leaving work every day, I liked to take the back roads home in the afternoons. These roads were quiet, without traffic lights, often smelling of fresh cut fields / grass and absolutely FULL of colorful roadsides!

About a month into fall that first year I was absolutely miserable! I was popping one sinus medication or another every so many hours, sneezing my brains out and blowing my nose until it was raw. My eyes were pouring water like a faucet, and swollen like I had been in a 10-round fight with the likes of Muhammad Ali.

Sometime into that fourth week, my parents were down for a visit. I had taken my mom out for a drive to see the plant where I worked and I decided on the way back home to take her on the scenic route, the back roads, so she could get a feel about one of the reasons I loved my new county so much.

I had described to her before how much less stress I felt, and how every day when I would leave work and take that back road home, no matter what had occurred during the day, once I hit those roads and passed the fields of beautiful colors, all the weight of the world seemed to just drop-off.

Three minutes into the drive back to my house and my mom said “Honey, do you know what that stuff is on the side of the road?” And I as I slowly said no, because I knew something was coming, she began to tell me the story of a little girl (herself), long ago, who gave her mother a beautiful bouquet of those same “flowers” and how her mother was miserable for a week because of it – sneezing and blowing her brains out.

I can remember looking back her, and then looking at my car windows which were both rolled ALL THE WAY DOWN, and suddenly realizing, I had been slowly killing myself!

So, no more windows down for me until the first freeze that kills it all that golden rod off. I’ll just have to take my Saturday evening drives with the a/c on instead of the nice cool breezes of fall, and be satisfied to look at the beauty THROUGH the window.