Leaves. An essay.

​I HATED fall.

Somewhere between the ages of 8 and 15, perhaps through all of it, I dreaded the end of summer and the coming of fall. 

Why? 

This is a memory I have forgotten about, suppressed, moved away from, and in every other way deemed too unnecessary to acknowledge throughout the last two or three decades.

Here we go:
When I was a kid and lived on a decent size lot in a decent sized suburb, the number of full, mature, huge trees (Oaks or Elms, I think?) on our lawn was somewhere between 2 & 4. Add to that the overhanging trees from neighbors' lots, and the leaves that fell to the ground from October until mid-November seemed endless, bountiless, and the opposite of weightless.

It was a RAIN of leaves, especially when it rained, pulling down even more of the otherwise light foliage with the heavy, soaked air of fall precipitation and pre-winter weather patterns. This time of year, even mild temperatures in the 50's seemed frigid to our sensitive, summertime-tuned skin. It wasn't as terrible as the sub-zero Michigan Januaries and Februaries, but it SEEMED so much WORSE because we were unaccustomed...

The family would gather to clean up the yard together once per week, usually destroying what otherwise would be an uneventful, if not pleasant, fall weekend. It's not like we (I) had anything else to do. The usual activities would continue on; work at the car wash, hang around with some friends, maybe build a plastic model or two if there were any kits that were shopped for or gifted around that time.

Mom was the ringleader, organizing the troops, the tools, and the zones of the front, side and back yards with meticulous accuracy. It could have been some of this detail-oriented behavior that I was rebelling against, the types of plans that left no room to escape, nowhere to hide, nothing to do but sweep, rake, bend, scoop, deposit, repeat.

One fall we bought a "leaf sweeper." This wide mouthed cart was similar to an old-fashioned barrel-bladed manual lawn mower, where the blade was replaced by a type of rotating broom, similar to that of a street sweeper. That broom brushed the leaves backward into a giant catch, when things worked perfectly...and they never did. Just add a little bit of moisture, or a breeze, or even just an upset, pissed off dose of teenage angst, and things would go horribly wrong incredibly quickly.

As we know, "attitude is everything;" and at that time, my attitude (especially when it came to raking leaves) sucked. And for a month, so did my life, or so the "drama-king" in me thought. October was fraught with energy-sucking opportunities for me to hate life and everything around it. 

Depending on the task, for a number of those years, I became quite adept at turning any assignment into a chore, any request upon my time from anyone other than me a derailment of MY PLANS (even if MY PLANS were doing absolutely, positively nothing).

The annual fall leaf cleaning activities were the most hated, along with the most consistently annual, of chores that were forced upon me.

So how do I justify LOVING fall, and all that comes with it now, in my mid-fifties? Well, let's start with this beautiful quote from Muhammad Ali: 
“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

The fall I'm writing about, the fall of 2022, has had some unique turns that led up to it. Meeting and rapidly falling in love with a person whose connection to nature runs boundlessly through her has been a significant start. Spending time with her in the woods, on the trails, in the grass...these times have brought a joy and an appreciation for fully embracing whatever Nature has in store for the time we are outdoors, which is often.

Even when I am not near her, my inner muse asks me "what would Dana do?" My naturally-aspirated tendency to fill free time with curiosity, exercise and movement often has me looking to the trails, or looking to the water for respite. This fall so far, I have been on more trails (both with and without her) than perhaps in all of the falls put together. Running through the forests in Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, I gawk in wonder at the leaves falling from the sky. Over the past 2 days, I've been playfully bombarded by soft shrapnel from Oaks, Maples and Elms, just to name a few. I've paused my Garmin to shoot pictures and video of Mother Nature's whimsical, colorful showers. The "faucet" opens and closes with the wind, changing velocity, direction and temperature with an unpredictable pulse only she knows the start and finish of. Even paddling the Tennessee River I have smiled back at leaves that have kissed my rental board & paddle. Their journey is pulled one way by the current, and stretched the other by the wind. Eventually I paddle through the floating signs of the coming winter, even in mid-America, where the climate is milder than the place where I call my home.

Even my colorblindness cannot dampen the kaleidoscope​ Mother Nature bestows upon us every fall. The hues that blend together from afar dance and separate as I look closer. Their vines grasp onto the last bit of branch before falling to the ground in their last dance of the season.

I believe my senses will be even more atuned to the seasons' changes and Natures preparing for hibernation of plants and animals alike. 

Like Nature, I have taken a lesson in patience. Like Nature, I see it is futile to fight the changing of the seasons, but rather, embrace it for all it's worth. For this too, shall pass, and give way to the new birth of a new season, in time...

---