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Season of transformation

After finishing up a project at work which took most of the week, I decided it was high time for me to get the hell out of there for awhile and seek some balance. So when lunch rolled around today, I drove off the premises, the wind at my back and classical music on the radio.

First order of business, lunch. What I got and where wasn't really important. It could have just as easily been a baloney sandwich on white bread. With the color on the trees and the odor of dying leaves in the air, my real focus was on being somewhere that wasn't a building. So with lunch in hand, I continued on.

Driving through a light rain, I found my destination — a little road I've been on before, barely two lanes for small cars, off the beaten path and winding through trees adorned in red, yellow, and orange. Not exactly an escape from civilization, but far enough away to make a huge difference. I found a wide spot on the side of the road with a decent view of fall's splendor, pulled off the road, cracked the window, killed the engine.

Silence, and leaves falling from trees. I ate.

I thought about everything that's happened over the last three months and realized I hadn't really processed a lot of it. A death in the family, two weddings, illnesses, a few other things which aren't yet (?) public knowledge, milestone birthdays, and far too many people close to me going through far too much hardship. As I sat and stared into the trees, I became aware — perhaps for the first time — my world is far different today than just three months ago. Looking ahead to the holiday season, it, too, will be vastly different from last year's.

I also realized I've missed being among the trees. In this fast-paced age of instant everything, I've forgotten the comfort I can find surrounded by growing wood and sheltered by leaved canopy. I feel like maybe I should get out once in awhile and reconnect with this part of myself. Growing up, I spent lots of time in the woods behind the house — technically not our property, but since no one else had a claim I knew of or ever would have recognized, I claimed it for myself. I knew the pathways like the back of my hand and became familiar enough with the trees to learn their growth patterns from year to year. I don't really have a place like that now, my own yard marked and surveyed by Kanawha County, surrounded by roads and neighbors.

Rain tapering off to clouds, color everywhere, and me in the midst of it all, watching one leaf fall at a time as they always do this time of year. Fall is a season of transformation, so perhaps I've not drifted too far out of the woods after all. Perhaps the season resonates in me just as it does in the trees. I am, after all, as much animal as I am human — warm-blooded, primate, fur, teeth, reacting to my environment the best way I know how.

Posted October 23, 2009 @ 23:49:49 EDT. 1 comment.