Holding Hands
Once they’ve fallen most leaves don’t travel far. They held lofty ideas while perched on a maternal twig, viewing the far landscape with family and friends. But when finally set free most fall short of their imagined horizons. It’s true that some lucky leaves get a good run. They fall on a windy day into a clear space and get whisked up for a long ride, but eventually they land with others and usually just stay put as part of a pile. Just occasionally one or two break free and have a second shot at travel before resting where some sort of hand holds them tight.
I like it when the wind works with the leaves. Habitual eddies herding leaves like a sheepdog rounds up sheep, but with a mind controlled by the landscape shaping the way the wind flows. The leaves like it too I think, as this is when they get their longest feel of freedom. Dancing round in circles, holding hands with other leaves before finally settling into a heap. In these groups the whole pile moves as one until it gets so deep that the weight of numbers means the dance is over for all but the top layers. The early-comers sit and watch the newer members arrive, forming an ever growing mound that I can easily bag and drag away whenever I feel like cleaning up.
I have raked leaves into piles of hundreds, of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, who can count? Mountains waiting to be sacked or mulched. Absent of a major wind event, the mountains stand firm. More leaves get added by constructive wind than are subtracted by a liberating breeze. When I see the brave, childless, skeletal shapes left behind, it is hard to imagine where all those leaves fitted. I would like to make a time-lapse film of the falling and view it in reverse to see each leaf placed back where it grew. Back to the gnarly hand that held it in place.
Whether they like it or not, excited or scared, all leaves must eventually let go in the face of Winter’s approaching forces. The trees must again stand bare, their essence exposed with all finery stripped away. And revealed is a new grandeur, the deciduous courage of massive frames standing against forces that would bring them down. These leaf factories going through their ancient cycle of processes to produce new fruit in Spring. I have seen sheltered oaks and small birch trees looking small and feminine as they hold on to leaves for longer, even occasionally keeping a few leaves throughout Winter. But all the old year’s leaves must depart as the new growth arrives. And does a leaf really want to make the cold journey from the bough alone, unable to hold hands with others? There is a crazy happy madness in the mass fall with one leaf leaping after another and the sky full of descending invaders intent on covering the land below.
All year these trees stand in front of our house. Dignified achievers, independent while valuing teamwork. Not guards, but delivering a feeling of security, constancy; a timeless permanence while we change. Staring at the same sky each with its unique perspective, at night they seem like astronomers royal; Flamstad, Halley, Bradley and Bliss. Not all famous now, but each important for the connections and intellectual hand shakes one to another. Aggregated knowledge built over time. One alone not worth much and certainly getting things wrong, but a field of astronomers, talking over time, unveil all we know today about the heavens.
A tree doesn’t want to move. It’s enough to stand firm and grow tall, reaching for the sky. Last alongside brothers who are connected in ways that moving creatures don’t understand. Feet firmly in solid ground, now leafless they hold hands and stare at the sunrise waving many hands at the sky to welcome the day. I have moved too many times and now long to feel joined to the land. Happy to find one spot and not to travel far. As devastating as COVID-19 was in 2020 I found a silver lining in the change of pace it brought to life. The lockdown and travel bans forced time for roots to grow back and go deeper.
Amongst the many ways COVID impacted us socially, an early loss was shaking hands. At first this seemed humorous as we mutated to fist bumps, then elbow bumps and some doing feet bumps. But over time the distance and isolation became greater and more real and perhaps the most frightening possibility was the prospect of not being with the people you loved when you needed them most, or they needed you. Standing stripped bare unable to hold hands when we departed if that’s what it meant. Instead saying goodbye via a phone screen and talking via texts. The gifts of mobility when what you would want would be the gift of trees.
Each winter the trees hold hands to face the new year hoping to be reclothed with leaves, hoping to see another cycle of seasons. If they live to add another growth ring to their trunks, they will dance with life in Spring, live lazily through the heat and humidity of a Virginia summer and again watch their leaves fall to cover the ground when the sun starts to arc low. If they count years, they join us now in hoping for 2021 to bring joy.
As my own leaves fall off I learn from trees that teach me strength. When what I thought was the best of me starts to fade, to stand and search the sky with dignity and hope. When the things that have defined me are lost, to stay certain of who I am. To start the next growth cycle holding hands with the force that embraces me and welcomes me to a sky home. My body, once formed from star stuff, falling away to become earth bound forever.