On Autumn

As I was taking more Fall photographs recently, it occurred to me that it is THE most beautiful time of year, in terms of colors and smells and even the cooling temperatures. It is the year at its most mature, most fruitful, most giving.

I took the thought out of the seasons, and brought it into human life, and into mine specifically. I have begun the “Fall” of my life. In eighteen days I will be 54 years old. As I look over my life, I see the many things I have accomplished, the many lives I’ve touched the children I have borne, the years I have spent learning and becoming who I am. Much of it has been painful, or at the very least stressful. None of it has been outside of the scope of what it means to be human.

And yet here I am, golden as the leaves, wondering where next, what next, before Winter comes to strip the last juices of my youth, to leave me without sap, dried up, withered, awaiting another renewal that cannot occur for humans once we die, unless we believe in an afterlife.

It is a sobering, even a frightening, thought.

Unlike the trees, which have an instinct of their own survival for the dying of the year, human beings have no expectation of a renewal to youth and beauty, to life and health, to energy and drive, as do these simple plants. Where their renewal is a yearly expectation with the coming of spring, we have but one spring. When it is past, it can never be retrieved. We will never have another spring.

Which means, we will never have another Fall. I will never have another Fall. I need to make the most of this beauty, this final burst of joy and life before my Winter steals upon me.

I can only be who I am.  And while I am learning to be a more beautiful me, I must retain those qualities that will make my golds and reds and oranges stand out. I cannot let these last years of fullness, of lushness, of ripe sweetness be overshadowed by fear, or anger, or hatred. I MUST resist the urge to crawl back into my shell when things go wrong, or others disappoint me, or life swings back to slap me in the face. MY Fall comes only once. I MUST embrace it, and participate, and learn to enjoy it!

I can be as beautiful as the Fall…if I let my colors shine forth as brightly, as unashamedly!
 
Have a wonderful weekend, my friends