The Alchemy of Autumn

I adore the alchemy of autumn. Something in my personal chemistry changes the moment the temperature drops and the chlorophyll in the leaves starts to break down. I guess the trees drop their leaves on purpose, using their ancient knowing, or so I am told. They realize that those thin appendages are too delicate, they somehow know that the leaves’ mere existence costs too much energy, so the trees just release them. When a tree chooses to pare back, there’s no reversing it; sugars alchemize and close the leaf off from the branch, forever severing what was once an integral part of the organism. Once the tree seals off the leaf, once it announces to the world that there is no turning back, we can see the tree’s true colors. In the stripping back of the unessential, this biological act of self-preservation, we are able to really, truly see what they are made of.

Unlike my sister trees, I feel like there begins to be a “great piling on” instead of a stripping down around this time of year.  Dozens of fall-exclusive activities—pumpkin patches, apple picking, hayrides, leaf peeping walks—all begging to be explored, documented, enjoyed. Halloween costumes to be made, treats to be consumed, and the foreboding shadow of Christmas which looms ever bigger, ever earlier, every year. My joy and exuberance for this season—deep fall turning into early winter—is unending, but my ability to be truly present and savor it? Well, that leaves something to be desired.

I’m trying to be more intentional this year, purposefully sealing off the avenues that are too difficult or too delicate to survive a long midwestern winter. In that difficult edit, what remains should be only the most brilliant, productive, resilient parts of me. And so it is.