The southern landscape has begun its transformation. It’s changing in more ways than one. The first falling leaves are riding the wind to earth. The morning air is chilled by the frigid nights. The sun always seems brighter and more intense in early Autumn. Although I’m not a coffee drinker, this time of year makes the steam swirling up from those mugs appear most seductive. There’s a certain smell in the air. Smells made more relevant by the memories associated with them; warmer clothes brought in from storage, ripe sweet persimmons, my Mother baking in our family’s tiny kitchen, smoke from a few early season fireplaces roasting still green wood. In these memories, I am always a child. Perhaps that is when we see with the most clarity, unencumbered by things to come. Not suggesting that childhood is care free. Mine was far from that. Nevertheless, every year, I vow to be more still, more present like I was as a child, more appreciative of what I have right now in this moment. Each year, I run just as fast, warping speed to get things done. Like the seasons, everything shifts with change. It’s all about perspective, about how we choose to see things. We do, always have a choice you know.
When the green suited foliage change into their vibrant Autumn attire we marvel at the fiery glow and inspiration it brings. Truth of the matter, the leaves are dying, we know. The trees going dormant to rest, to be still and prepare for another season of life giving and production. Through the cold crusted bed of winter to a soggy bottomed spring they lay in restful preparation to brim anew. I see. I am seeing. I will have seen all these things come to pass for many years at no loss to nature. In fact when she returns as pale green in the new season, her adornment will be all the more lively. Try leaving a vine growing on a fence over the winter months and see for yourself. They come back with a vehement fervor to live, to thrive and claim their space on this planet. The dormancy, the quiet still time, the death, as you will, adds to the vibrancy of the life that is to follow.
We… I could do well to take in this lesson so simple in its depth. How each season has its place in the space of life, all in support of that life. I’m reminding myself with these words that periods of less or inactivity are ok. In fact they are beyond okay and into necessary for the balance of life with all the things folding in on itself. I am listening. Listening to the rhythm of Mother Universe calling. Calling her children home to themselves to dance the dance of life on this grassy path in harmony with who we were before we were told who to be.
Notes of A Native Son 