“Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities of life.”
by Phil Harris and Bruce Reitherman from the Jungle Book
We are a fickle bunch. We all have our own ideas of what the seasons should and shouldn’t be—Fall’s too short, Winter’s too long, Summer’s too hot, did we even have Spring this year?! We love the Hallmark renditions of the seasons and wish for three perfect months of that. The last two weeks have been a pretty perfect Fall here in Central Minnesota—even with the caveat that an early hard freeze took away the slow ripening of the yellows, oranges, and reds and muted them all.
Yet Mother Nature does what she does. The leaves have been losing their ability to use chlorophyll for energy, their colors are emerging, they are falling from the trees, and gathering like a circle skirt in the grass below the branches.
Then Mother Nature sends in the wind! Our idyllic Autumn speeds up, and in one day whips most of the leaves to the ground. Wait! That was too fast! Once again, our perception of what is happening is not the same as reality. The Maple tree above is the last of our big three Maples to change color and drop its leaves. The Maple tree below is the first to change—it has been changing color for over a month. The wind won’t take down the leaves until they’re ready to let go. The paring down process proceeds in the prescribed time, even while influenced by hard freezes and stiff winds.
Our little Larch trees turned a rich amber-gold this year instead of bright yellow, adapting to the conditions.
The Crabapple leaves browned and curled with the freeze, and when the tree is bare of leaves, it will still hold on to the fruit.
The tall, columnar Poplars dropped their leaves while still mostly green, making fragrant, messy piles in the street. Even though the branches seem bare without the leaves, the swollen buds for next year’s leaves are already there!
While the Ash trees have lost their leaves weeks ago—the first to turn yellow, even before official Autumn arrives—this little beauty of a Maple waits until late October, its shimmering red-orange leaves take center stage.
Most trees are identified by their leaves—those of us who really know trees see the differences in shape, in bark, in seeds, in color and can name them by name without the leaves. But losing the identity of the leaves complicates things, makes it harder to tell who is who. However, a Kentucky Coffee Tree is still a Kentucky Coffee Tree even when the leaflets are gone.
Most of the White Oaks are bare—their non-spectacular brown leaves have fallen to the ground along with this year’s prolific crop of acorns.
But the Red Oaks are just coming into their sensational color and often hold on to their leaves into or through the Winter.
The varied Viburnum shrubs run the gamut from glossy green to yellow to freeze-induced brown—all on their own time schedule.
Fall is a miraculous time of year—the programmed shut-down of the growing season—the short and sweet growing season of Minnesota (reality or my perception? Or a little bit of both?) September brings the beginnings of the paring-down time, and by this time in October, the paring down cannot be denied as the bare branches let the sky show through. Grief is a paring-down time, too. It strips away the unnecessary parts of our lives like a whirlwind, and we are left with the bareness. We are raw and vulnerable. Often we feel like the structure of our world has collapsed. The Hallmark rendition of our lives has been crushed. Something precious has been taken from us. We sit in the bare pain, the bare unfairness of it all, the bare loss. What really matters? What are the bare necessities of my life? Who am I without this person, this job, this dream, this pet? With time and introspection, we realize we are still holding on to the fruit, the buds are there for the next growing season, and the seeds have already been planted. We look at ourselves and recognize the shape of our being and the texture of our character. We hold on until we’re ready to let go. And the Light shines through.
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