Haniwa: Autumn, and Falling Leaves

Despite its name, St. Eclair High School wasn't named after the French pastry, nor was it named after the main character from Kiddy Grade: and the fact that I know that little tidbit probably tells you enough about me to fill in the rest. It was, in fact, named either after Saint Claire, the patron saint of clairvoyance and eye disease, or it was based off of the name of the city Santa Clara. Either way, it was a weird name to have. Literally translated from the French, it means something like Saint Lightning or Saint Pastry. I don't know what either of them have to do with teenage places of learning. Life is full of those untidy little connections.

Connections. Thinking back now, that's where it all began, on that street leading to Saint Eclair High School on that quiet fall morning so many years ago. It was the year that we moved from my old home of Chaparral Heights to Saint Eclair, left behind the vibrant "ethnic" neighborhood for the quiet college town in the foothills. We were there for my mother, who was going back to school at last: switching careers from a life of teaching kindergarteners to being a therapist for grown adults. Some might say that her new clients would have less maturity than the ones she was used to.

My mother's life was moving on, so all of our lives moved on as well. I'd grown used to saying goodbye to friends time and time again, so this was just another move for me: another home, another new bedroom, another year spent making friends I'd eventually say goodbye to again. One small benefit: the school was close enough for me to go to on my own. No more mornings spent climbing in and out of that old green minivan and having to deal with my parents' lousy radio choices every morning. Seriously, though, what was the point in listening to music written by dead guys? Why care, when you could listen to bands like Nirvana instead. Now I could listen to the music I wanted on my brand-new Walkman: pop in the tape and put the earphones on and go riding down that beautiful sycamore-lined street in the crisp, foggy autumn morning towards school. An idyllic image.

At least, it would have been if the damn street weren't uphill both ways.

It was a joke, going uphill both ways, that my father had told time and time again in his long lectures about how easy kids like me had it these days, and I'd always thought it exaggeration. I'd never really considered the possibility that I'd live on the other side of a large hill from school: steep enough to be a pain to go up and down, large enough to not be worth trying to go around.

It was a dilemma I'd face time and time again, and one that would, in the end, be answered only in one way: suck it up and head up that hill, boyo, on your ten-speed bike with the peeling lightning bolt decals, wearing that ugly looking bicycle helmet that no one else in your class wears because, you know risking permanent cranial injury and death was cool. Also, this was back before they managed to make bike helmets look in any way dignified, and wearing one always made you look less like Lance Armstrong charging through the peloton and more like the kind of student who showed up to school on the short yellow bus and smiled at everyone.

I was enjoying, in a manner of speaking, the first of many many many uphill struggles heading up that damn hill in my lousy ten-speed bike, when I first saw her. She was walking by the side of the road, her backpack held in one hand, the clip-clip-clip of her patent-leather flats muffled by the soft crunching sound of dry leaves under her feet. She was picking up the winged seedpods of the sycamore trees and throwing them into the air, watching each one slowly spin all the way to the ground, before picking up the next one and taking a few more steps. It was slow going for her, walking that way, but she didn't seem to care. There was an expression of utter serenity on her face, and her wide, brown eyes were gleaming with joy.

She was, I supposed, pretty enough, if you liked her particular type. Not exotic in any real way, shape or form, but fairly attractive. Hair was mouse-brown, the most boring girl-next-door brown possible, and her eyes, although pretty, were the same ordinary brown color. She was dressed almost entirely in green: the short, pleated skirt was the color of the velvet that one sees on poker or pool tables, and the ribbon gathering her long, waist-length hair at the back of her neck was the color of oak leaves, dark and slick and glossy. Her hooded red jacket fell to mid-thigh, and it had a deep hood that she had tossed back carelessly. There was a seedpod caught in the fold of the hood, the winged seed perched precariously on the edge of that cloth.

It was the moment that I first met Sara Rosenthal, the Rose Princess, and I remember feeling exactly the way most people do on the event of the most significant moment of their lives: absolutely apathetic, as I struggled my way up that damn hill towards school, sparing barely a passing glance at the strange, dream-lost girl walking up that sycamore-lined street on that misty autumn morning of the first day of school. The first day of the rest of my life.