Falling back, a season of change3 min read

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

 F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is officially fall, a season of change, and a time to witness the glory of fall leaves and shed the old before moving ahead. It is a season of change.  Living in Southern California Fall isn’t usually a season for us. Sure we all fake it with decor and pumpkins but nature isn’t showing us the way as it does in the rest of the country. So this weekend, as I head to the east to catch a glimpse of real Fall, I find myself pondering the greater meaning of the changing of the seasons.

Change

These past seven months every one of us has faced extraordinary change in one way or another. Whether it’s as simple as not going to church, as difficult as not going to school, or as complicated as health issues, missing elderly family members, financial struggles, or employment. In one way or another, we have all experienced incredible change and loss. Some days it feels as if we are living in an alternate universe with our sense of “normalcy” gone. Many of us are waiting for things to “return to normal.”

LOSS

We cling to the past and life as we knew it. Much as a tree tries to hold onto its leaves as fall tries to shake them down. I think about the changes some of our oldest citizens have witnessed in their lifetimes. Some born before the 1918 pandemic witnessed  World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the list goes on. Each major world event created enormous loss and each event changed life as they knew it forever. The leaves fell off, one by one as each old way of life was blown away. No matter how hard we try to hold on, the change is here and it is inevitable.

Honestly, for me, I think I am just beginning to process it all. So much happened so quickly between the pandemic, the economic aftermath, George Floyd, hurricanes in the south, and then our wildfires here in the west. Those fires, some of which still burn, have destroyed more than a million trees that will not grow this year. Just as the pandemic has taken more than a million lives across the globe. The loss is unimaginable in so many ways.

Regrowth

However, if there is one thing I know about the forest, is that after a fire and complete destruction. The soil is fertilized and ready to begin again. That change, even the change of colors on the most beautiful fall tree will lead to loss. And that loss whether of a way of life, of a loved one, of a job, of school, will inevitably lead to a rebirth.

I will be walking in the fall foliage this weekend, seeing the beauty of change and the shedding of old leaves. I will be thinking about the opportunity for growth, a place to start anew, and a moment to mourn the beauty of what was.

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