Thoughts About Fall...

I have been sitting in the living room, sewing and thinking, for about an hour. I am finished now with a hand sewing project that I started a month ago. Right now, I am basking in the glow of success: the project is completed.

And all that thinking, too, brought me a finished product. Well, as finished as possible this morning. As I sewed, I could hear the football game in the background, as the TV in the family room is on, broadcasting the regional NFL game.

My thoughts turned to Fall, and how amazing it is to me that it is here already. It seems like just yesterday that I was going to New England to view the fall colors. But it was a year ago, next month.

As I look out the front window, it still startles me: the trees are gone. The yard looks barren to me. There are no trees to comfort me and watch over me. Their lifecycle ended too soon. I am still here.

It occurs to me that trees are harbingers of the season. Right now, my trees would have been dropping an occasional gray-green leaf. Our Fall is later, here on the West Coast. An occasional dropped leaf with the promise of more. Many, many more.

As the season progresses, and becomes official, the leaves turn to brilliant crimsons and golds and paler yellows and oranges. The lawn is blanketed in a sea of color that only nature could produce.

And the raking. Hours and hours of raking and picking up and dumping and raking again. And again. Until it is done. And the last leaf has fallen.

Then the trees take a rest. They spend the winter in a dormant state, providing a stark reminder against the cold, gray sky: life has cycles.

In the spring, they do something again. Buds form, then leaves sprout, and soon, the yard is bathed in shade again. Gentle breezes are accompanied by the soft music of rustling leaves. Life has sprung anew from the dormant, barren trees.

And in the summer, the leaves are my friends. The trees provide shelter from the heat of the day, and respite from the piercing rays of the sun. Ever thirsty, they steal water from the lawn, and spread their roots far and wide, in search of water.

But no more. They are gone. I will have to search for other harbingers of the changing seasons, or look at trees in others’ yards. And, as I look at those trees, I am always searching for a new generation of trees, and new friends to plant in my yard.

You see, trees are like people, they are always doing something. Even when they are just standing there, dormant, they must be thinking, just like me. Thinking, or doing, those are the choices.

I hear the football game in the background. The crowd is roaring and the announcer is talking loud and fast. Something must have just happened. Somebody did something and somebody else is glad that they did. That’s how things are…

Life is not a spectator sport.