Lessons from Fall

Summer is my favorite time and every year I feel punched in the gut when I realize it’s really going to end.  But then once I reconcile myself to the change of season (especially if the skies stay blue) I am enchanted by the beauty that is Fall.  I’m also endlessly interested in the lessons (spiritual and not quite spiritual) that I learn from the things around me.

#1) The first year we were in Oregon I noticed that the leaves changed colors for a long LONG time.  First one kind of tree and then another, a succession of intensifying colors and leaves falling.  For a while I was a little cranky about this---I thought that it would be a lot more beautiful if everything turned at one in a glorious finale of color.  Like Maine, I thought.  (Not that I’ve ever been to Maine at all, much less to see the leaves.)  But then I realized that this gradual Fall had a serious benefit because it stretched out the beauty over a longer time.  Instead of one major moment there were a series of smaller moments. 
Sometimes I might want my life to feel like a (picture of a) Maine autumn looks, like the finale of a fireworks show.  But in reality it’s probably better to pace myself, to stretch out the moments of joy and fun and happiness over more time rather than experiencing them all at once. 

#2) In Hendersonville one time my dad took me for an autumn drive to show me some trees.  I can’t remember exactly how we got there, but I remember what we saw once we arrived—enormous flame colored trees around the perimeter of a factory.  He told me that every year those trees were brilliantly colored.  I’ve noticed that in the years since—that the trees that are beautiful one year are also beautiful the next. 
It was an adventure the first fall or two in Oregon (or would have been, had I been emotionally stable enough to appreciate it) learning the spots of fall beauty in the area.  The scarlet trees behind the gymnastics club, the multi-colored trees lining Evergreen, the late turning tree in the yard across the street, the red trees on the way to Glencoe, the burning bushes in the Costco Parking lot and at Intel.  Each year I watch for the now-predictable places of beauty, watch for them and cheer inwardly when they hit their peak of beauty.
I think maybe life is like this--that there are  predictable places of beauty in our lives, like a Christmas LotR marathon, family game nights, and a beach trip with friends.  Pieces of beauty small and large that dot our years, coming back every year to delight us.
That is also good for me to remember.  That the beach trip is over for this year, but it will come again.  That there are always things to look forward to, predictably beautiful moments that will bring happiness and joy.

#3) I can still remember the year in Durham that I was determined to take a picture of the perfect autumn leaf.  I looked and looked and looked.  And much to my surprise, I never found one.  Because when I looked up close, the most beautifully colored leaves were never perfect.  I finally had an a-ha moment: the colors come as the leaves are dying.  The colors are a moment of brilliance before the leaves fall from the trees and the trees go dormant. 
I thought for a long time that year about the profoundnesss of this understanding--that there can be flaws in things that are amazingly beautiful, that sometimes the process of death brings great beauty.  And I remember it every year as I scuff along the sidewalk through brightly colored leaves.

So forgive me, Autumn, for dreading your approach.  And thank you for your beauty and the lessons you teach.