Fall

Friday, October 08, 2010

Fall

8 October 2010

After days of being blanketed by heavy clouds of rain, I found solace in the fallen leaves that were blown by the wind, helpless in surrender on the ground after being squeezed out of its greens by the coming cold winter wind.

My heavy shoulders seemed to have released its clinging to my neck, like the leaves to its branches; and my ruffled mind wasn't alone in its whirling up in the air, flowing yet dizzy in circles, only to be ultimately dropped aimlessly on the merciless cold ground of impending death.

It was quiet. It was beautiful walking on the wet ground sprinkled with golden leaves, vulnerable and soft and fearless of decay. The greens, the reds and the yellows never screamed orange but remained elegantly co-existing in their varied hues all rooted in one trunk of a tree preparing itself for the inevitable.

The moment became the moment. My past few days and I say weeks, were the unsettled and unaccepting wet and cumulus summer resisting the fall. Every branch of my body was breaking. My mind whirled between letting go and hanging on. I felt so cold, within and without.

While watching myself enveloped by the thousands of fallen leaves beneath me, and the falling leaves above me, I stopped feeling alone. The dropping temperature and the resilient life in the trees, flowers and plants hidden in the pretentious death of the fast approaching winter reminds me to persevere. And yet, yet, ironically, I find this most beautiful and quiet. It has become a friend who understands by joining me turning from green, to red, to yellow, to brown and to eventually nothing as it melts and gets buried in the snow in the coming weeks.

I am in the autumn of my life and I am looking forward to the winter months to once again remind me how beautiful something so cold and colorless could be. Perhaps, it will clear the ruffling leaves of my thoughts. Perhaps, it will freeze the fast changing opinions that I have of success and happiness. Perhaps, I could just fall and freeze and still find it all beautiful, like today.