I have never been very fond of autumn: light on the wane, cold advancing, color dimming. Not to mention, classes starting. So, while the conversational world is full of guessing when the peak weekend for fall color might be, I hunker down and count the days until the winter solstice, when daylight would begin tolengthen, sharing its promises of where it will take us.
My dog Niko and his friend Sunny celebrate an October rite of passage. They run and leap into piles of dried leaves, just for the fun of it, for the feeling of the sudden splash into another realm, hiding for a few seconds, and then popping backup into the ordinary world. I know this feeling, because I did it as a child. For Niko and Sunny, though, there are also hidden discoveries, tennis balls in the leaves, and small treats to root around for and find (or not) as a proper reward for having a good time with friends. We humans play god to the dogs, with our rakes and tricks, showing them that there are joy and gems to be found and friends to laugh with
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But an interesting thing happened this late winter. Snow receded; the time not yet changed. I find I have fallen in love with dead and dry, curved and wrinkly leaves that have spent the last few months under the snow cover. I stroll the yard and the streets with Niko, and every leaf I see seems more eye catching than the previous, I pick one up, turn it over, admire it, and decide whether to bring it home. No offense, little leaf, I say to it if I replace it to its original resting place, it's just that maybe this is where you belong.
School children gather the brightly colored leaves of October; I have done that in the past with children, preserving the colors and shapes by dipping them in melted wax or ironing them between sheets of wax paper. No doubt, October reds and yellows do have a very deep allure.
But now, I have a bowl full of February leaves. They are infinitely different in their size, shape, shade, and brittleness. Some are torn, broken, or stepped on. They are beautiful and interesting in their dotage; they have personality. I arrange them for portraits. Singly, can I get the twists and folds right? The color? In groups, which ones belong next to each other? Does it matter if they are arranged, tossed, or jumbled?
In the end, it is the variety of how each leaf shows at this stage of its life that I most admire. There is no limit. Like snowflakes there are no two alike. Like snowflakes, they each tell of their own journeys. And, like snowflakes, they will, in time, change shape, break apart, to share their essence elsewhere. Their atoms will move together in new ways, form new molecules, unite in new forms. Places to go, atoms to meet.
That part, yet to come I can imagine but future details are hidden. My job, at the moment, seems to be to take notice of unexpected beauty, as it lets me see into the secrets of other worlds. That's my way. Meanwhile, come next October, Niko and Sunny will engage once again in their own other worlds, leaping, and finding surprise treasures down in the depths and the dark of the leaf pile.
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| From the yard. |
