SCARS OF SUMMER – The Perfect Beauty of Decay

We’re so accustomed, aren’t we, to equating beauty with symmetry, with youth…with perfection. I’m as guilty as anyone, I guess. But isn’t autumn the most persuasive invitation to revisit that bias?

Couldn’t we learn to see the fallen petals, the droops, curls, crimps and ragged seed heads not as flaws, but words in a poem about the patina of character?  

I want to see those blemishes as emblems of the joy each bloom has lent the eye, the food and nectar they’ve served up, the progeny borne, the artists inspired.

And, after all, as a lesson offered us older, equally-imperfect human beings on the meaning, the true value, of a life well lived?

"Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light." ~ THEODORE ROETHKE

CAP’N CRUNCH – Master of Dwindling Days

I’ve never been that big a fan of fall. The lush, green mantle that summer tucked around us so tenderly in June is growing threadbare. Flowers are fading. The crisp crack of bat on baseball is giving way to the dull thump of foot on football.

Summer’s luscious, oxygen suffused air will turn first to the sugary sweet smell of decay, then get wrung out, dried and sterilized.

Worst of all, daylight, after nourishing eyes and souls well into the evening for the past few months, gets dialed down like lighting for a noir photo. Too soon it will be dark by 4:30.

And need I even mention the coming four-month deep freeze here in Minnesota?

     I set out each day looking for—and finding—
     the bright side of autumn.

MY INNER TEN-YEAR-OLD
It all feels like gradual starvation. Nonetheless, determined to choose a mindset of abundance over scarcity, I set out each day looking for—and finding—the bright side of autumn.

My daily walks are a kind of meditation on that ambition. I head outdoors with eyes and heart open to fall’s undeniable small wonders: berries, from black to white with all the colors in between; the busyness of critters squirreling away stores for winter; leaves, dying with panache, flaunt their finest colors.

One of my favorite harbingers of fall is the oaks’ dropping their acorns. More specifically, stepping on their brittle capules, many of them knocked loose by impact with the sidewalk.

As I walk I seek out the elegant little crowns, aiming to crush as many as I can. I'm sure I look deranged, lurching back and forth, seeing if I can’t hit one with each step. Chalking up a double is especially rewarding.

Squnching one with the toe or arch of your shoe might do the trick, but the sound and feel are most satisfying when you hit it right on the ball of your foot.

The lower the humidity, the crunchier the little cups get. If it rained last night, fuggedaboutit. The best is when they’ve baked in full sun for a few hours.

(My wife rolls her eyes when I do this; thinks I’m reverting to my silly, inner ten-year-old. Which, of course, I take as a compliment.)

      Look right past the withering of summer’s
      joys and find those of fall.

RECLAIM THE WONDER
Don’t we all—especially after all the dispiriting events we’ve been through the past few years—need a little more reversion to childhood? Hell, we needed it even before COVID, George Floyd, the climate calamity and what’s-his-name, when far too many of us were already allowing workaday concerns and mindless diversions to steal our innate senses of wonder and play.

So c’mon folks, let’s reclaim that precious, lighthearted exuberance that is—or at least should be—every evolving soul’s birthright. Get out there, take a deep breath of this sweet, late-summer air. Look right past the withering of summer’s joys and find those of fall.

Look for those first crimson leaves of sumac and the fantastic shapes and patterns of fungi; smell the crisp autumn air; listen for the Vs of Canada geese heading south.

And by all means, indulge your still playful ten-year-old self with a mischievous, crunch-a-licious stroll through fallen acorns.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

ONE PERSON’S CRUNCH

     There are three distinct classifications of crunchiness: Crispy is onomatopoeic; it whispers; sounds like its spoken-word self. Crispy is biting into a classic potato chip or a piece of puffed rice cereal (a Rice Crispy, if you will). 
     Crunchy has a bit more heft. The item’s usually a bit harder, more rigid. The sound’s deeper, gravellier, like chomping into a fresh carrot or a well-toasted almond.
     And then there’s Crackly. Crackly’s brittle, snappy; you really get the sense that something’s breaking. It’s what happens when you bite into stuff that’s hard and thin, like peanut brittle, ribbon candy or even some “kettle” style potato chips.
     Some things—like ice—can be either crunchy or crackly, depending on their hardness or thickness.

THE RISE OF FALL – Cures For Autumn-itis

This time of year has always proven a bit depressing for me. It’s like that mix of low-grade depression and dread one experiences on a Sunday afternoon when a nice weekend’s winding down and another work week looms. I call it Sunday-itis.

Multiply that melancholy and stretch it out over a couple of months, and that’s what I feel each time another summer winds down and five or six months of cold, dark, colorless days descend on our spirits here in the Northland.

But hey, when you get lemons don’t get all sour, right? Make lemonade.

         These are the bluest skies of the year.

WHAT GOES AROUND
So here, without much effort at all, are a few of the wonders of fall which, if I put my mind to it, might help me ease the transition:

LEAVES - As you may know, fallen autumn leaves have recently become the medium of my irrepressible creative bent. (See my work at Shades of Autumn) I look forward to getting out there during those precious few days between when the most desirable leaves drop and when they begin to deteriorate, and collecting those amazing little splashes of color, form and texture.

ACORNS - I love walking through the piles of them that accumulate on the sidewalks around our oak-filled neighborhood. The drier the better. I go out of my way to step along the edges of the sidewalk where the thickest piles provide the most satisfying crunch.

HORSE CHESTNUTS - Popped from their prickly casings, the nuts litter the grass. If you get to them before the squirrels do, pick one up. They’re one of the most aesthetically pleasing objects in Nature. The rich, reddish-brown color—yes, that color is actually called “chestnut”—the silky-smooth texture of the surface; the rounded shapes; even the pleasant heft of one in the hand make them ideal worry stones.

FUNGI - Autumn, especially one following a very wet summer like the one we’ve had here in east-central Minnesota, is prime time for various kinds of fungus. Most of the annual flowers may be history, but these fascinating growths have their own elfin charm and earthy aroma. (I have not hunted for morels, but I should.)

 

        The bright, impetuous scents of summer 
        give way to more muted, thoughtful smells.

GEESE - On late fall nights, I keep my ears open for what may sound like a crowd of people chattering in the distance. If I look up, I might see the hundred-strong "V" of migrating geese, two thousand feet up, dimly lit against the blackness by ambient earthlight.

WOOD SMOKE - In summer, smoke means a campfire, or someone’s roasting wienies or browning marshmallows for s'mores. In fall, whiffs of smoke smell different somehow. These cooler nights, fire’s heat is for more than cooking. Soon it moves indoors, convening folks round hearth and stove.

THE AIR - Summer air, especially during the dog days of July and August, can feel like a damp blanket. It wraps around you, encloses you—along with a cloud of mosquitoes. Come Fall, though, the blanket lifts, the mozzies expire, and the cooler, drier air does nice things to smells, sounds, and even one’s point of view. These are the bluest skies of the year.

APPLES - The difference between a fresh-picked fall apple and one bought any other time of year is like the difference between rich, freshly-extracted espresso and instant. The balance of sweet and tart, the crisp texture, even the weight of the fruit tells you it’s fresh, bursting with juice. Thank goodness I only have to wait a couple of months after the decline of my other seasonal favorite: nectarines.

SMELLS - In fall the bright, impetuous scents of summer give way to more muted, thoughtful smells: dry leaves, decaying vegetation, fungi and molds, perhaps a savory stew or apple pie steaming in the kitchen.

Which of autumn’s wonders help ease the loss of summer’s long, luxuriant days for you?

THE EBB OF GREEN

The turn of hydrangea preziosa’s leaves seems more a blush of spring than fall, the bloom’s exuberant confetti toss exciting their fandango pink tips.

It is an arousal as much of light as color, its tip-to-base progression reminding me that this is not the sensual surge of May, but October's melancholy ebb of green.

TEN-FOOT STRIDES

 

It's one of those precious late-October-in-Minnesota evenings. I've walked tall this past half-hour, body thriving, spirit nourished by all I see and feel. And then, in one captured moment, as sun nestles into thinning treetops across the river, my stature positively soars. Now I walk in ten-foot strides o'er this patchwork quilt of spent, mauve-tinged cottonwood leaves.

And today somehow the contrast between my cool front and warm back feels especially satisfying. Soon I'll have to get here by 3:30 instead of 6:00 to grow like this. Oh, I'll stand tall, but the reach of these sublime colors will be stunted. And both sides of me will be cold.

PARTING SHOTS – Images of Late Summer

It's been a spectacular summer here in Minnesota. Blessed with warm days, yet very few 95-degree steam-bath stinkers we usually sweat our way through. Blessed with both ample sunshine and sufficient rain to keep most everything lush long after it usually wilts and turns brown—and to keep river levels high enough so I could navigate my favorite backwaters without my having to drag my canoe over mud flats and sand bars.

PHOTO: Phil Champion - http://www.philchampion.co.uk/ 

LAST LEGS
Hard to believe, isn't it, that just four months ago we were watching anxiously for the arrival of some sign, any sign, that another long, cold, grey winter was releasing its grip on the ground—and our spirits.

Eventually, though, summer did manage to take hold as it always does, and the profusion of rich, saturated color sprouted and spread over the grateful landscape. How I love all those shades of breathing green, the blankets of true, dense blue from early-blooming Siberian squill, the piercing reds of geranium and canna, the ravishing yellow-orange of goldenrod!

  I made up my mind...to see all these wonders 
  as if I'd never seen anything like them before.

But no sooner had this glorious season started than I could hear it ticking away. I made up my mind—as my posts here on One Man's Wonder and in the social media implore—to soak it all in, to see all these wonders of color, texture and pattern as if I'd never seen anything like them before. And I think I've done a pretty good job of it; I must have stopped a thousand times, as it were, to smell the roses.

But suddenly here we are; another Labor Day. The State Fair ends today, and ragweed's got me stuffing my pockets with Kleenex. At least symbolically, summer is over. Our window box plantings sense the cooler, drier air and, seeing right through our best efforts to fool them into thinking it's still June, have started to thin and shrivel. Everything else too—with the exception of those good old late-season standbys, like zinnia and chrysanthemum—seems on its last legs.

LETTING GO...NOT!
So, as I set out on my walk along the Mississippi yesterday, I was feeling kind of melancholy, almost anticipating an experience of loss. I was already mourning all the shrinking, browning plants and spent flowers I knew I'd come across. What made me even more blue was the looming prospect of five or six months devoid of all that fresh, living, breathing color.

      At least I'd have these poor excuses for the 
      real thing to comfort my color-starved soul 
      till tiny buds pop once again.

Of course, this wasn't at all what I found. Summer is indeed still alive here in growing zone four. But, as if to convince myself of this, I brought my camera. At the very least, I figured, that would help me notice and appreciate even more these resolute colors of late summer.

What's more, even if the dead of winter were somehow to slam down on us tomorrow, at least I'd have these poor excuses for the real thing to document the fleeting summer of 2015 and comfort my color-starved soul till tiny buds pop once again.

I hope you'll forgive the indulgence.

PHOTOS THIS GROUP: Jeffrey D. Willius

GREEN RIVER – Leafscapes of Change

         In one last gasp the thirsty land exclaims 
       in fervent hues, “Do not forget me, green!”

         These aerial views of summer’s wane are rich with meaning. 
           The landscapes speak of flow and ebb, growth and decay.

              Rivers of green recede from lands they’ve nourished, 
            lush and pliant, since May. Tributaries that coursed then 
             with new life now gather it, drain it back to the source. 
      Stream to brook to rivulet—all know in their cellular souls that, 
      here in northern climes, frozen flow hurts more than none at all.

         In between, red, orange and gold spread as on New England   
                 hillsides. In one last gasp the thirsty land exclaims 
                        in fervent hues, “Do not forget me, green!” 

                    In the end, flow slows to trickle; trickle, to seep;
             and then is gone. Sere earth mottles, cracks and crumbles. 
        And decay’s fall brew percolates to nourish the land once again, 
                      stored up for yet another May flood of green.

GINKGO – Living Fossil, Esthetic Wonder

LAPPING ELEGANCE
I first came to appreciate ginkgo (ginkgo biloba) trees about 20 years ago when I was collecting fallen autumn leaves for a craft project. I was using pressed leaves to create gorgeous lampshades. Since I placed them not just as scattered elements on the shades, but as a solid field of color and texture, I had to factor into my designs how the leaves’ shapes worked when repeated in a continuous pattern.

Most challenging were the highly irregular, lobed leaves like oak and maple; it was nearly impossible to lap one over the next without leaving voids here and there. Considerably easier were the more-or-less round or oval ones, which overlapped in neat lens shapes. And loveliest of all were the ginkgo leaves. Their elegant fan shapes dovetailed nicely in a beautiful, saffron yellow fish-scale pattern.

             I kept looking around for the pasty-
             faced kid who’d just blown lunch. 

Shape and color weren’t the only advantages of ginkgo leaves. Their flat surface was also far easier to glue down to the shade’s styrene substrate than most leaves, whose prominent veins interfere.

Of course, gaining this kind of intimacy with ginkgo leaves soon made me more aware of the tree than ever. I began looking for them and noticing other wonderful qualities of this ancient, unique species. (Among the oldest of all trees, its leaves are nearly identical to fossilized specimens dating back 270 million years. With no close relatives, ginkgo biloba is the sole survivor of its family.)

U-REEKA!
Sitting on a bench outside of Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home in Oak Park, Illinois, I was nearly overcome by the smell of vomit. I kept looking around for the pasty faced kid who’d just blown lunch.

Seeing no one looking the slightest bit queasy, I looked down and noticed the brownish-yellow, grape-sized fruit (technically seeds) that had fallen from the big old ginkgo tree spreading over us. I reached down and picked up one that had been partially squashed under someone’s foot and smelled it. E-e-e-w! That was it all right. (Turns out ginkgo fruit is full of butyric acid, the same substance released when butter goes rancid.)

   In China, where it is the national tree, ginkgo 
   is revered as a symbol of longevity and vitality.

Later that fall, I noticed that nearly all the trees the city of Minneapolis has planted along some blocks to replace the decimated American elm are ginkgoes. As I collected the most perfect of their leaves for my lampshades, I noticed that one or two of the trees on each block was dropping fruit.

Come to learn that there are male and female ginkgo trees, and that, while city foresters try to plant just the non-fruiting males, apparently distinguishing between them is not easy. So I always watch my step in late summer and fall.

Another unique property of ginkgo biloba is the way it branches—or should I say doesn’t branch. Just as the leaves lack the continuously-branching vein network of other leaves, so the branches seem to spurn the sequential branching so common in other trees. Most of ginkgo’s branches depart from the trunk and simply reach straight out, sprouting nothing but leaves to the very tip.

CURE OR CROCK?
Ginkgo biloba is well known for its purported medicinal qualities. In China, where it is the national tree, ginkgo is revered as a symbol of longevity and vitality. It is used there and around the world to treat respiratory issues, incontinence, indigestion, intestinal worms, gonorrhea, poor circulation, depression, dementia and inner ear problems, among other ailments.

While some studies have supported its effectiveness, many have debunked it. So I suppose one could say that, at the very least, it is as good a placebo as any other. And, since I depend on ginkgo for nothing more than its considerable esthetic qualities, I can say that, in that regard, its potency is undisputed.

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Little Tips

 TIP #23
Hold things up to the light.

PHOTO: Steve Jurvetson

Leaf, fish scale, agate, maple seed. All have inner beauty—veins, cells, grains, layers, colors—revealed only in their translucence.

Let the sun or your own illumination be your x-ray, curiosity your power...and see deeply.

CALL ME CAP'N CRUNCH – Walking On Acorns

While out on my evening walk yesterday, I found myself doing something that's become, for me, a harbinger of autumn. I crunched dry acorns underfoot. In fact, I go out of my way, to the very edges of the sidewalk where most of the iconic little oak bombs lie, swept aside by the elements and a hundred other walkers.

Whole acorns don't crunch so easily; even the broken ones still have a little meat
to cushion the blow. But those little caps, they're the crème de la crème of crunch, delivering a crunch so deep and satisfying you can feel it in your head.

Be careful, though. If you step and there's no give, there you are on a bed of ball bearings, and the crunch you hear might indeed be in your head.

Here, fittingly, is one of my favorite posts in my series, 101 Tips on How to Be 
In the Moment.

 TIP #65

Celebrate your own footsteps.

A whisper through crispy autumn leaves; the earnest crunch of dried acorns; the thin chatter of a kicked pebble.

Though they bear the weight of the world, let your feet proclaim their joy…not just in getting somewhere, but in the going.

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Tips

 TIP #50

Ghostly Geese

These late fall nights, keep your ears open for what may sound like a crowd of people chattering in the distance. If you look up, you might see the hundred-strong "V" of migrating geese, two thousand feet up, dimly lit against the blackness by ambient earthlight.

WHISPERS OF LEAVES – Heeding the Wisdom of Autumn

How one defines the seasons of one's life is pretty arbitrary. Take fall for example.
I know some 50-somethings who act like they’re already anticipating the end, fading and molding away. And I know a few 80-somethings who still wake up every day expecting change and growth, celebrating life by donning their brightest colors. (I like that quote by baseball icon Satchel Paige, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”)

Nonetheless, each of us reaches a certain age where it’s hard not to realize that there’s more of your life behind you than ahead.

 

 

      I may not be as fresh and flashy as I was
      in my spring…but my roots have grown deep.
      I know who and where I am.

DIVERGING PARALLELS
Just the other day, as I shuffled through some whispering leaves, I was musing on these parallels between this stage of life and this season of the year, and how many of them really apply to me.

Clearly, at least by the measure of years, I’m well into the autumn of my life. And, sure enough, a few of my leaves are withering and dropping.

I may not be as fresh and flashy as I was in my spring, as cocksure as in summer, but a few fires, droughts and storms have sent my roots deep, made me strong. I know who and where I am. You could say I'm just starting to show my best and truest colors.

As autumn comes, at least up here in the North Country, life heads indoors. Sap slows, animals settle into cozy burrows and dens; people, into their homes.

Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen in life too? Like they say, don’t our creative juices, our vitality and engagement with the world around us start retreating in our autumn? More and more, as our physical reach diminishes, shouldn’t our lives
turn inward?

This is where the parallels start to diverge for me.

        I want my experience, my knowledge,
        to be like blocks of granite…spread out
        before me, a row of stepping stones to
        more and deeper truths.

STEPPING STONES
No one doubts that the autumn of the year will yield to winter and then, inevitably, to yet another spring. The autumn of one’s life, by most accounts, will not. I’m not sure I can accept that as graciously as a tree, a bear—or a snowbound Minnesotan—accepts its annual four- or five-month dormancy.

I want my experience, my knowledge, to be like blocks of granite, not simply piled up as the foundation of my awareness and ego—or perhaps as a monument to them—but spread out before me, a row of stepping stones to more and deeper truths—about myself and about the cosmos.

If there’s a tendency to think of the fall season as an ending, a winding down,
isn’t it also a beginning? Isn’t it the start of a process of storing, building, putting by the provisions for the long cold winter, and collecting fuel for the inexorable engine of spring?

That’s the way I’d like to see the autumn of my life too. Not giving up, not letting go, but building toward something new, something deliciously unexpected. I don’t know what that might be, but I’ll look forward to it nonetheless.

    Do we really get just one of each life season?

I guess that’s where faith comes in. Of course, no one can prove that some level
of consciousness carries on after the human body’s demise…but neither can
they prove that it doesn’t. That’s the beauty of it; we can choose which reality
to embrace.

So, what do you think? Does the human life / seasons of the year metaphor work for you, comparing one’s lifetime with just one astronomical year? Do we really get just one of each life season? Can’t someone like me, in the fall of his life, embrace that season for all its melancholy reality and still look forward to another spring?

Can’t we always believe in the promise of spring, if not in body, at least in spirit; if not within the power of Nature, perhaps within some inscrutable power of our own?

I don’t know about you, but I live for that promise.

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Tips

TIP #50 

Take a gander at ghostly geese.

Some late-fall night when you’re outside, keep your ears open for what may sound like a crowd of people jabbering in the distance.

Look up and find the stringy "V" of geese slicing south two thousand feet up, dimly lit against the black by ambient earthlight.
 

AUTUMN LEAVES – As If For the First Time

(This is the latest in my series of reflections, As If For the First Time,
describing the most commonplace of experiences through a fresh lens,
one of innocence and wonder.)

One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, 'What if I had
never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?' RACHEL CARSON

Imagine you live in a place where the trees either don't shed their leaves or lose them continuously, a few at a time. Or maybe your trees drop all their leaves annually, but the leaves just turn brown.

And let's also say it's a third-world country, you're poor, or you live under a controlling government, so it would never dawn on you that things might be different in
other places.

Okay, now someone new arrives on the scene—a visitor, let's say, from northern climes in North America, Europe or Asia. First, they tell you that where they live rain crystallizes and blankets everything in pure, sparkling white. Yeah, right!

Then they say that, before that magic fairy dust comes, the trees all turn from green to resplendent red, gold and orange—even purple. C'mon! Tell me another one.

Can you imagine fall foliage, snow—or any of a thousand other wonders—as if you were seeing it for the first time? If that doesn't cut through your apathy and stoke your sense of joy and wonder, then try seeing it as if it were for the last time. Hm-m-m... See how wonder turns to gratitude?

IN THE GUTTER – Lessons From My Grandchildren

My daughter sent me this photo this morning. She said, “Hey dad, the kids were delighted that raindrops falling into a puddle could create bubbles.”

                

This delights me too—at so many levels: that my daughter thinks of me at such moments of discovery and wonder; that she and her husband show my grandchildren not just the joys of being outdoors—in any kind of weather, I should add—but encourage them to look carefully, inquisitively, creatively; that the kids have learned to not just welcome wonder, but expect it;

WONDER OF WONDERS
Wonder exists at many levels, and they’re not always the most obvious. To get beyond the commonplace and see the real miracle, one often has to invest an extra measure of curiosity, creativity or just plain old patience.

And that’s what I find most interesting about my grandchildren’s experience with the puddle. They could have been drawn in by those golden, glowing leaves. It could have been the water and its unique properties—the reflections, the clarity, and certainly those amazing ripples.

Perhaps they did notice all that, but what they were especially drawn to were the bubbles, a wonder even more ephemeral.

I so appreciate my daughter today for those lessons she so thoughtfully mediates between generations.

Kids are naturally good at wonder; they’re hard-wired for it. Getting them outdoors, letting them stop, look and play, allows those circuits to fire, powering their health and happiness in many ways.

They learn the most basic—and some would say most sophisticated—lessons about themselves and their relationship with the spaces around them, about beauty, about humility and a concern for things beyond themselves.

WHAT GOES AROUND
Sometimes, as I get carried away with my writing and the work entailed in bringing it to a growing readership, I lose track of that inevitable question about teachers and students: who’s teaching whom?

I forget that, as much as I may have taught my children and grandchildren about curiosity and wonder, they continue to teach me at least as much—about perspective, spontaneity, joy and, ultimately, love.

I so appreciate my daughter today for those lessons she so thoughtfully mediates between generations. And this, perhaps, is what those fleeting bubbles have to say to those who stop and listen: life and love, like wonder, are fragile. No matter what the distractions, we must keep our ears open or we may not hear it.

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Tips

TIP #50 

Take a gander at ghostly geese.

Some late-fall night when you’re outside, keep your ears open for what may sound like a crowd of people jabbering in the distance.

Look up and find the stringy "V" of geese slicing south two thousand feet up, dimly lit against the black by ambient earthlight.