Autumn Leaves

“the autumn leaves

drift by my window…”

No, they don’t. Around here, they zip by so fast that you wonder if you saw them at all. Or they get caught on the updraft and spiral skyward like snowflakes only to land light years from their tree of origin. I watched a flock of them on Saturday morning, dancing and spinning with such glee it was hard to grasp that the dance is of their death.

I pictured a tiny fragile leaf, nurtured all summer on sap and sunshine, clinging tenaciously to the branch despite the insistently tugging wind. I imagined the tree whispering, encouraging it to let go. So it does. The wind catches it, carries it high above the branch, above the tree itself, away on a dizzying gust, higher and higher, until it disappears from mortal sight. The bright yellow remains will land on a lawn or a sidewalk, but the leaf itself has moved on, through the clouds and up past the atmosphere to wherever leaves go when they die.

Only they don’t die. I doubt that leaves actually live. They are to a tree what hair is to a human. They grow and are shed, but they don’t feel anything. When a leaf is plucked before its time, it doesn’t say ouch. The tree does. The tree houses the infinite energy, rooted in the earth and tied to an annual cycle that mirrors the greater cycle of all creation.

The blaze of autumn colour is easily misinterpreted as death. It may signal the final hurrah for this round, but it’s far from over for the tree. It will sleep through the winter, then be reborn in the spring, sprouting new leaves, living another cycle … just as we do. We don’t end with our mortal winter. Our bright yellow remains are absorbed back into the earth, but the essence of each individual rises up past the atmosphere to a place beyond mortal vision, to sleep or dream or plan a return visit—but certainly not to die. What would be the point of that? Why would Nature establish a pattern of renewal and rebirth, and exclude us from the party? And how naïve are we to believe that we only get one crack at this mortality gig? I didn’t have to repeat third grade, but I did have to move up through elementary to junior high to high school before I learned enough to equip me for the next phase, and which proved insufficient, by the way. Doing is the best way to learn, so if we don’t learn it in this life, guess what? We repeat grade three. It took me twelve years of school to make adulthood. I reckon it should take at least twelve lifetimes to graduate to whatever comes next in the grand scheme of things.

That’s not to say I can goof off or not do my homework. I doubt there is a test between phases, but I suspect if I don’t pay attention now, I’ll get to the exit interview and go Crap! I was supposed to learn (insert virtue here)! So I’ll have to wedge the forgotten lesson into my course load for the next round.

Autumn is my favourite season of the year, so I’m optimistic that the autumn of my current existence will be the most fun yet. My toes are barely into it, but I know it’s here. My leaves are turning, for one thing, and the sap is starting to run a bit thin. I’m attracted to brighter colours, and bolder about wearing them, too. Now I get the saying, “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple.” Vivid colours are better suited to adorn maturity.

Just ask a tree.