The trees astound me with their generosity. They hold nothing back. Each year the cycle begins again, the gathering of sunlight, the storing of energy, carbon, the creation of new leaves. Leaves that emerge baby soft and fine, pale yellow, light green, chartreuse. Leaves so tender they look like blossoms. Putting on bulk and weight, spreading out over the tops of canopies, glorious crowns, snarled reaching branches, forming the lush foliage of summer’s blessed shade.

Autumn comes and the slow surrender begins, the letting go. Leaves lose their luster, the edges beginning to dry, spots of brown or gold mottling their surface. Some change to brown, light and crisp; they float on the air, piling up in mounds, drifts, oceans. Some blaze bright before they fall, gold and red, orange and amber, and every shade in between. Death can be beautiful too. This I learned first from leaves, and then from old people.

The trees seem to surrender their leaves so easily, they must trust that next year the cycle will begin again, they must know that as long as they are standing tall on this earth life will move in them, and through them, creating the magical rhythm of leafing out, spreading wide, and falling to the earth again. What if we had trust like that? Trust in our cycles, in the turning of time, in the rightness of it all. What if we knew our place in the web, could we surrender as completely as trees?

I walk among the leaves, and I bend to pick them up with delight. To look at their shape, the pattern the veins make across their surface, to feel the firmness of a leaf stem clasped between my fingers and thumb, I roll them back and forth admiring how the colors shift in the light. I will never grow tired of autumn leaves, the wonder of this generous beauty will always leave my heart humbled, gratitude echoing around the chamber inside my chest, a whisper of thank you on my lips.

I remember when I was small, and we lived in the city where streets had sidewalks, and many of them were planted with trees. I knew those sidewalks so well, I knew where every tree root pushed up against the surface of the pavement to create a crack, and I would roll over those cracks on my scooter, or my bike using it like a little jump of sorts, some novelty in my ride.

I remember walking in the autumn with my mother, and her teaching me the French words for the colors of the rainbow. Jaune is yellow. Yellow like the leaf fallen from a big leaf Maple, on the grey sidewalk, before it’s been crushed under foot. Yellow leaves lying perfect in their form, utterly beautiful.  I kicked them with my boots, my small feet loving the sound of the crunch crunch as I walked through piles of leaves.

I knew a marvelous old woman once, Ruth. Who lived in the retirement home where I worked. She was that perfect combination of spicy and sweet, a woman who loved deeply, and would also take you down a peg if you needed it, or maybe, if she was just in the mood to do so. She was legally blind but could somehow always tell if I’d gained a pound, and would not hesitate to tell me “ you are so beautiful, but honey you need to watch your weight.” I know you probably cringe reading these words, but I smile in fond remembrance. Those words truly were spoken with love.

I remember sitting with Ruth on an autumn day and speaking of the leaves. The beauty of autumn in Oregon, the way the sky sparkled blue, and there was a nip in the air, and the lovely scent of summer ending. The earth getting ready for a long winter sleep. A soft dreaminess came over Ruth’s face, and 100 watt smile emerged, drawing back the corners of her mouth creasing the corners of her eyes, the wrinkled cartography of her face transforming as she traveled in her mind. “You know I used to love to kick the leaves on the street, I can still hear how they would crunch crunch under my feet… I can’t walk anymore, but I remember.”

When I am old and grey, and sitting in a window. Will I still remember the look of the leaves on the sidewalk, the sound of the crunch crunch, the pleasure of walking hand in hand with my mother? Will I remember the generosity of trees? The thousand ways they’ve blessed my life, the hours spent sitting nestled in their roots, the days spent hiking looking up at their towering trunks and canopies… I think I will.  And if I’m fortunate, I’ll have someone to tell about it.

Could I be like maple?
Standing tall, always reaching for the light.
Roots sinking down through dark, rich soil, winding around stones and broken pipes
to find the wellspring of life.
The living water.
Could I burn brightly?
My leaves shimmering in an exaltation of gold and red and scarlet, vermilion, even lavender.
A cacophony of color, unbridled life that gives way into death.
Leaves falling from maples high branches litter the ground in a carpet of glory.
I walk on them, my boots feel too brown to trod on such a delight as this.
In a months’ time, these glorious tailings, falling from maples branches
 will turn to brown and then to soil.
Feeding her roots and preparing to once again set leaves come springtime.
Oh, how much I learn from the trees.
Their constant and ever-present generosity, their willingness to rise again, and fall again
and rise again, and fall.
Do they grieve their leaves as they drop towards the Earth, or is it pure surrender, the letting go of what must be done in order for something new to emerge, to sprout, to rise upward
Carbons knitting together, to create the pattern of life, everybody is reaching for the sun. Everybody is reaching for the water.
And this is life, the somersault of beginning, and ending, the way form gives way to absence and then form again, and I too am part of this.
I too, in my woman’s body one day will become dust and then perhaps, I will become maple.