The leafless season

One morning it seems as if all the leaves have fallen. A few, tenacious, hang on yet to otherwise bare branches. The tamaracks still hold their golden glory. The roses in my garden are a sea of green and gold. But the big trees, the silver maples and the oaks and the aspens, the ones whose leaves make the woods look like it’s on fire, their leaves have come down.

My feet kick those leaves up on a walk in the old growth. They’re thick, ankle-deep, so loud it’s impossible to hold a conversation. They make a beautiful carpet on the ground.

My heart is in two places. On the one hand, I love this time of year—the sharp, crackling energy in the air, the snap of cold, the blaze of color as the world settles down, down for the quiet months. And on the other, a part of me mourns—I live well north, and the leaves and buds will not unfurl for another six months. This is the beginning of the long, quiet cold.

The trick, I think, lies in retraining my eyes. As the palette of the world reduces its color, it calls upon us to look a little more closely. To find beauty in the lines of the landscape, rather than its fullness. To search rather than simply appreciate.

It’s a truism that this time of year drives us inward—into our homes, into our selves—but truisms exist because they hold some, well, truth. Personally, I’ve had a busy six months. I’m ready for the long dark—for the most part, anyway. A part of me wishes those leaves could have held on juuuust a little longer.

Whether or not I’m ready, it’s almost here: the long dark. The season of fire and snow. The season of stories and mugs of hot tea and cozy blankets and long, deep, dark sleeps. The season when there is less pulling us relentlessly outward into the world; the season where we can turn inside and find out what’s been building within.

For a little longer, we’ll resist. Going inside isn’t always easy or comfortable. Eventually, though, we’ll yield. The days will grow shorter until solstice. Our dreams will grow deeper.

This is, to me, the generative season. What will we make? What will we find, when the swiftly falling dark sends us within?