I'm not a gardener: you won't read here about crocuses poking up through the thawing earth or about my desire to get my hands in the dirt to plant pansies. More likely, you'll hear about the unwrapping of tasty cheeses and the uncorking of wine to aid in my study of the brackets for women's March Madness.
Generally speaking, six inches of snow must suddenly cloak the entire landscape, or big hailstones hit me on the head, for nature to get my attention.
But the leaves on the trees surprised me this fall. Driving to Adele's soccer games, I was pulled out of my everyday life, transported to some magical reality, just by the leaves on the trees around me.
It was a big, unforgettable farm feast in the sky. Great swaths of glittering color lined the roads: towering stained-glass windows of candy-apple coating; flaming orange tissue-paper persimmons; a giant pomegranate forest; humongous baked-sunset meringues, moving and alive.
It was as if the trees themselves were daring me: Just try to proceed with business as usual! Maples and oaks screamed from the bleachers, This is an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime moment! Pay attention! Look alive!
Sensitive to stimuli, the trees prepared to shut down as the light changed and the days became shorter. They didn't go dormant quietly. They became a stadium of fans all cheering for life and change and beauty, wildly waving their glowing handkerchiefs.
They put on their show, a veritable circus full of shimmering costumes. Fantastically, they rode in on elephants and swung from trapezes. Stand up and take notice! they cried to the onlookers.
This is how I want to be. Just when I become so familiar to all that the pharmacist knows my prescription, the neighbors know where and when I walk, and my family knows what's for dinner, I want to surprise them--POW!--with some unexpected and generous act of beauty.
