Friday, October 12, 2012

To Envy the Trees

I spent last Saturday in bed. For hours. I caught the worst bug ever but kept working and was paying for it by the weekend. I didn't sleep much, but I was too tired and unmotivated to do anything but lay there. However, something pleasant that happened a few days before was keeping me company, so it wasn't completely useless; rather more like a whole day in a bed of eider-down thoughts.



On Sunday, rested up and having sickness-induced cabin fever, I had to get out. The trees are turning so rapidly and soon all the color will be gone. It will fall from the trees like day-after holiday decorations and lay on the ground like a carpet slowly fading in the sun. I needed to get to it before that happened.



The colors of Autumn. Why do we drive to them and walk among them like this season will never happen again? It happens every year.



Because they are dying, perhaps? 

I don't think so.



They may be shedding, but they are not dying. Those trees are as alive as they ever were, though from all outward appearances, they are losing touch with us. It is only for a time. Sometimes the ushering in of the beauty of life necessitates an appearance of death first.



The trees are dropping the old, and wouldn't we all like to be able to do that so easily? Let our problems, and those character traits we want to see diminish to make more room for the favorable ones, flutter to the ground like last year's leaves so the new can spring forth unhindered.



They are preparing for hibernation. Except instead of wrapping themselves in a blanket of warmth, they throw off their covers and become vulnerable in the coldest of months. A display of fortitude to be coveted.

And let's be honest. Don't we sometimes wish we could hibernate for a few months? 



And are they not just a bit like we are, those leaves that flutter to the ground? Some a bit stubborn, perhaps?



There are millions of them...

 

Yet not one quite like another.

 

No, I think it is not to bid them farewell that we flock to them as birds flying south.




















Perhaps we go because we envy them, without even knowing.

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