lessons of the fall

When I was young, I hated fall. Short, chilly days. Slate grey skies. Stubby staccato shadows on the sidewalk. And that awful, omnipresent smell of leaf-burning -- a dark, smoky stench that lingered in your clothes and whispered, “Summer’s dead and gone.” To me, fall smelled exactly the way it felt: deflated, defeated, cut off from sunny warmth and reassurance. If summer was the pinnacle of the year, autumn was the plunge down a steep and craggy ravine.

Which is why, driving down the street the other day, I was surprised to catch myself admiring an autumn tree. It really wasn’t much of a tree, just sitting there by its lonesome on someone’s front lawn. But its leaves were its crowning glory: a rich, radiant mix of golds, rusts and reds that burnished to bronze when the light hit them, swirling down to the sidewalk in a lazy confetti spiral that formed a vibrant carpet across the grass.

And as I sat watching this striking display of slow-motion fireworks, it occurred to me that I could identify with that tree. That maybe I could finally appreciate its beauty because I understood that the days of warmth and radiance were mostly behind it. The abundant green foliage had faded away. It stood huddled in the chill; thinking of the winds to come; waiting for the certainty of dark snowy days, frost, freezing rain that would steal away whatever remaining softness and beauty it had.

But there it stood regardless. It stood straight and proud. And it shook down its final adornments in a dazzling firestorm, a gilded and glittering grand finale that rivaled anything the memory of summer could muster. Or the coming of winter could diminish.

I drove away slowly. Cracked the window just slightly. And breathed in the sustaining aroma of that sweet, smoky air.