Image source: Merlina McGovern
Fall. Leaves fall in the Fall. According to Dictionary.com, the word Fall began to be used to describe this season of falling leaves as early as the 1500s. I remember a British friend being a bit flummoxed when I used the term; autumn is what they use for this season. I like the word autumn, but it is a bit formal. Fall fits perfectly. It is short, just like the life left in the falling leaves. Perfect.
So many people love this time of the year, including me. It’s an odd thing to think about though. The bounteous beauty of summer is over. The fruits of the harvest have all been gathered. Now is the time when things begin dying. The smell of the dead leaves crunching beneath my feet is at times overwhelming as I go on my daily walks. On those walks, I’m sometimes startled by the sounds of squirrels ruffling around in the leaves hiding their acorns. Some folks don’t like this season because of this death and decay all around us. The ghouls and spirits of Halloween and Day of the Dead can be suffocating to the living.
I can see that. But, for me, this season is a season of brilliant transitions. Fiery leaves are still mainly on the trees where I live. Many have fallen, but still more are brittle flames alight upon the thin tree branches, clinging for a bit still in the autumn winds. The leaves that have fallen have coated the sidewalks and neighborhood yards.
As I walk through the piles of crunching leaves, I can also hear the incessant wine of leaf blowers. When I grew up, we didn’t have leaf blowers, that I can remember. Of course, given my many travels, I didn’t always live in places that had beautiful deciduous trees that would drop their leafy clothing each fall. But now that I do live in such a place, my peace is often shattered by the obnoxious and continuous sound of these gas-guzzling beasts. Our town has decided to begin a seasonal phase out of these fall monsters. While you can’t bore into your neighbors’ ear drums after 6pm or before 730am and you can only do so from March to May and September to December that’s still quite a few months and hours of torture.
More and more, I’m seeing signs popping up imploring everyone to “leave the leaves.” Doing so is beneficial to not only your lawn (they will decompose and add nutrients to your soil) but also to the many critters that will use the fallen leaves as shelters, including bees and butterflies.
I had never given any thought to these natural side effects of leaving the leaves. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. There is a reason for the natural transitions that happen each season. The summer life soaks in the sun at its height and then flames out spectacularly as the light of day decreases over the fall. Leaves and stalks and stems dry out and fall softly to the ground providing cover for the soil and home for helpful critters. Snow falls in the winter and blankets the leaves and the sleeping flowers and trees. In the spring, the pull of the sun coaxes out the blossoms, which bring the bees, and the cycle begins again.
We’ve become so used to ignoring these cycles and to always primp and trim and cut and blow to force our lawns to conform to a sterile standard of design. But, let’s throw off the tyranny of the leaf blower! Let’s leave the leaves. Let’s enjoy the cycles of the seasons as they are meant to be. It’s a neverending cycle that transmutes the power of the sun into everlasting life for our environment and for ourselves; why would we interrupt that powerful cycle?
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