The Autumn Leaves

   Fall has come quickly this year, the leaves wanting to turn and rapidly reaching their peak after a few cold fronts arrived from Alaska.  That early chill seemed to bring a sense of urgency to the trees to wrap up their nutrient gathering and begin the process of shutting down, a bonus for those of us watching the annual display of colors being revealed as the green camouflage of chlorophyll withdraws.  The song in the title, of course, has an interesting history for I remember it more as the instrumental by Roger Williams (the only piano instrumental to ever hit #1 on the Billboard charts in the U.S.), his descending cascade of notes seeming to mimic the falling leaves.  In the original Hungarian composition, the title was "The Dead Leaves," a bit more somber title to put to such a melodic composition but perhaps one reflecting the author's viewpoint of the coming winter.  The late Eva Cassidy* joined many others such as Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald in doing a vocal version of the song, singing to the melancholy lyrics added by Johnny Mercer which seem to be closer to the Hungarian version; but for me, the instrumental version is the one I envision, even as I mulch the falling leaves daily, leaves that don't seem to end.

The changing colors from down the street

   It is yet another show of nature surrounding us whether seen from our back yards or through a car's windshield, the reds and golds and orange colors growing ever more vibrant until they get the signal that the mother tree is sealing off the connection and readying itself for winter.   Says the site EarthSky: As unfavorable weather approaches, hormones in the trees trigger the process of abscission whereby the leaves are actively cut-off of the tree by specialized cells.  The word abscission shares the same Latin root word as that in scissors, scindere, which means “to cut.”  At the start of the abscission process, trees reabsorb valuable nutrients from their leaves and store them for later use in their roots.  For me, the mulching is tedious but valuable to the grass and soil, releasing the phosphorous into the ground (thus the reason to throw your old banana peels into your gardens).  Off among the trees, the spiders, beetles and bees get ready for the flurry of leaves that I cannot reach, their piles upon piles providing much needed insulation once packed down by the coming snows (yes, some solitary bees head underground for winter and can use your help with providing them a home).  It is the cycle of life all in a year.

Photo: Michael Yamashita, Nat'l Geo

Sunset nearby

   Each of us has our own image of what autumn or fall looks like, and those of us fortunate enough to witness the changes are especially lucky.  In Hawaii and other tropical climates such changes are foreign; National Geographic posted their own images of fall throughout the world but this picture on the left was one I particularly enjoyed because this is how I picture fall, the leaves so dense that it covers trails and roads and makes you wonder how so many leaves could be possible as they fall as easily as snowflakes.  Dumpsters and trashcans fill, mowers mulch and still they come, an onslaught of colorful natural confetti to signal an approaching winter.  And with those leaves comes the array of sunsets, a flurry of colorful skies as if valiantly competing for best in show.  Miss the sky by minutes and its glory is gone as if taunting you to notice and to gaze quickly, unlike the leaves that remain in waiting.  Walking the dogs now is a pleasure, a daily display of the ever-changing vitality of leaves ironically now coupled with their mortality. 

    One thing that intrigues me are editors for they have to look ahead months in advance, their publications hitting the stands or mailboxes well ahead of the season which means writing their intro column for fall sometime in the heat of summer.  But this month's issue of Better Homes & Gardens saw editor Stephen Orr break away from the usual format of recipes and decorating in his opening,  pondering instead the celebrations of fall throughout the world and throughout history: Many Northern Hemisphere cultures have fall celebrations at the time of the harvest moon to mark the line between the end of the growing season and the start of the hard winter months.  It's interesting the many similarities they share.  China and Vietnam celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival with moon cakes and parades of lanterns often inscribed with riddles.  During English and European fall festivals, congregations decorate churches with bread loaves, cornucopias, pumpkins, and corn.  In Judaism, Sukkot marks the wandering of the Israelites and the harvest with family feats.  Diwali, a Hindu festival of lights and bright color, takes place on the darkest new moon in fall...Here in the States, the secular Halloween and Thanksgiving are our most famous versions.  Halloween is more ancient, with its roots in the Gaelic festival of Samhain, celebrating the gathering of the corn with bonfires and offerings for departed spirits who return to wander the earth at the end of October...In Europe, the more famous All Saints' Day (aka All Hallows') commemorates the link between the living and he dead with chrysanthemums, visits to graves, and candles.  It marks the start of Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) in Mexico, which mixes the merry making and celebratory nature of other autumn holidays with a somber reverence for those who have passed on...It's fascinating that through all these traditions, differentiated by language and culture, we still gravitate toward common threads of humanity: the contrast between light and dark, mischief and reverence, plenty and scarcity.  As technology shrinks the world, isn't it reassuring that we can celebrate these ancient holidays however we want.

   Outside, my yard is again full of leaves, this after having just mulched many of them earlier in the morning (two hours and sore shoulders later, my battery-mower finally giving up the charge after so many piles of shredding).  But I need only walk the dogs and be treated to yet another colorful sunset to be reminded of the beauty of it all, this well ahead of my tackling another batch of leaves tomorrow before the wet and cold arrives (it's forecast to be 32 F come morning).  And as I both stare at the trees growing more bare and my own growing older, I can't help but rethink that perhaps we are all more like the leaves rather than the trees...our cycle of life is but one of many, a life that blends into a cacophony of others to make the larger picture whole, adding generations to the bigger picture and yet doing our individual part in blooming and helping life continue; at moments like these, with sunsets and leaves both so beautiful and both so fleeting, I often try and step back.  When the time comes and the signal is that one's job is done, the leaves give all that they have back to the whole. an ending not in resignation or sadness but in brilliance and in thanks.  A lesson of life, all resting there on my yard.

   

Another sunset from just down the street last night

*If you've never heard Eva Cassidy, it's worth taking the 3 minutes now to listen; as yet another artist dying way too young at 33 (of melanoma), one has to wonder if she knew of her diagnoses when she sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  Her deeply stirring version will possibly add new meaning to words you've heard over and over...what's out there afterward, a song that still asks about a "land that I heard of once in a lullaby."  Some things we take with us from childhood to our final days...but taking a song with us is something rare indeed (the irony is that if one delves into the history of the Wizard of Oz, that song was nearly scrapped but went on to make the 16-year old Judy Garland quite famous...Hollywood hired many young stars at that time period to act alongside much older stars, another one being the 20-year old Debbie Reynolds in Singing in the Rain -- she was also 16 when she was picked up by the studio).