Humdrum monochrome

"I speak of certain afternoons in early Fall, waterfalls of immaterial gold, the transformation of this world, when everything loses its body, everything is held in suspense, and the light thinks, and each one of us feels himself thought by that reflective light, and for one long moment time dissolves, we are air once more." – Octavio Paz ( I Speak of the City)

If life did not bid for such shifting presences, I would willingly spend the time required to watch an autumn leaf leave. There is an enviable virtue that nature exercises in the changing of seasons and it is to watch natural life in its own time, practicing its own imperatives. Fall is my favorite season for its leaves are the best teaching autumnal companions.

After the Fall equinox on Sept. 23 each year, the northern hemisphere experiences increasingly long nights that will culminate in the winter solstice where the night gets to have its longest slumber on Dec. 22. In the Fall, deciduous trees, as opposed to evergreens, are the most conspicuous signals that the presence of light is changing as these trees start shedding leaves in reaction to the autumnal change in light hours and intensity, temperature decreases, and reduced water supply. They shed leaves since under autumnal conditions, the production of food consumes more energy than they can afford so they temporarily stop food production, a process where leaves play the main part, and therefore leaves are "useless" at this time.

Before these said leaves finally fall off, they start to reveal colors that were in many cases, merely masked by the green of chlorophyll that is produced exuberantly in the intense light of the summer. As chlorophyll production slows in the Fall, these other pigments come to the fore: yellow xanthophylls, yellow-orange carotenes, red and purple anthocyanins as well as golden yellow tannins. In trees like oak and maple, anthocyanins seem to be formed only when sugar accumulates in the said trees during autumn. The overall vivacity is a grand seasonal spectacle! I once ventured deep in deciduous woods during autumn and felt like an undeserving humdrum monochrome surprised with a good seat in a rare show of sparkling frondescence in exchange for my silence. Not bad a deal.

After a few days when the Fall colors reach their climax and production of all pigments ceases, the leaves eventually turn brown and die. At the base of each leaf is the petiole, which links the leaf to the branches. Eventually, from lack of activity, the petiole cells eventually all die and the link is severed and the leaf finally surrenders to the forest floor. Walking on the forest carpet floor in the Fall reflects back to the walker the colors that nature seasonally surrenders to the Sun. The layering effect that the leaves offer and the bonus gift of colors in the beautiful autumn season unfailingly entices one to take on the world in all its shades, tasting light in all its wavelengths and making the best bargains with the seasonal rush of water that occurs in any creature’s life. The changing of the seasons bears the deepest wisdom of the love affair between ancient Earth and an even more ancient Sun. To learn from natural life’s seasons is to drill for lessons kept in layered bark-skins of time, under varying shades of light and rotating circumstance. Fall’s lesson is unmistakably etched in its invitation to shed what is not needed at this time.

Upon accepting the gift of light in colors linked with time, one walks out of a season in life bearing no grudges with time and thus, walks off a humdrum monochrome no more.