Message in the Leaves

Leaves' final color burst at the downhill edge of their lifecycle deliver a message from the Creator of us all. Don't fear the end, they seem to say. The yearly transformation of trees show us that there's beauty in change, even glory in death. In the same way that there could be no spring without winter, there can be no resurrection without death.

I've been thinking about death lately--the mystery rather than the macabre. For all our vast collective achievement, humanity still has not been able to permanently prevent our own end. Our mortality eventually catches up to all of us--no matter how indispensable we are, how accomplished, how needed. Death's inevitability is reason alone for humility. How can we, who cannot thwart the end of life, dare to say that this life is the end? How can we trust that our scientific method, that cannot find a solution to the most basic and universal aspect of the human condition, has all the answers to life's other pressing questions?

We stand continually in death's shadow. But that shadow can be more like the welcome shade of a tree in summer heat than a dark menace lurking on twilight street corners. If we accept that our time is limited, we can decide more wisely how to spend our short allotment. If we accept that there is only one Way to overcome death, we stop fearing the end and embrace the beginning and middle. Understanding death helps me appreciate life in all its simple grandeur, like the coral leaves waving starkly against a sharp blue autumn sky, telling me that life, even in death, goes on.

Change is History

A ship cannot sail until its loosed from its moorings.

Oh, history. That great teacher of lessons. No matter what the postmodernists say, I still believe there is much to be learned from looking back. By examining humanity's big picture, we spot trends or patterns that help us find understanding in our much smaller lives. For example, the different ways change can function.

Some historical transitions are simply the product of time. Minutes and days gently tick away and slowly, almost imperceptibly, things change. Flat medieval art gains Renaissance perspective. Romanesque heaviness loses weight and becomes Gothic splendor. Commonly held attitudes slowly change until what was once forbidden is openly lauded. It takes the benefit of hindsight--perhaps several hundred years of it--to see the change, let alone understand it.

Then there are the other kinds of transitions. The events or moments that pivot the world, taking it's course from one direction and forcibly twisting it toward another future. The dates that we have and will continue to pound into the minds of generations of school kids in the history classes they abhor. Columbus sailing the ocean blue. The shot heard 'round the world. Pearl Harbor. 9/11. In these moments, life, as we collectively know it, irrevocably changes.

Such it is with our own lives. Some transitions happen organically just by living. Friendships ebb and flow due more to circumstances than deliberate action. Relationships evolve, becoming better or worse depending on the daily acts we put into them. Haircuts grow out. These kinds of transitions are relatively comfortable. Yes, they require dealing with change, but not the in-your-face, aggressive kind of change.

And that kind of change can do a number on the most solid of us. These are the big events, the ones we mark our lives by. Leaving home. Getting married. Having a baby. Losing a loved one. Dying. For most of us, it's impossible to remember every moment of our lives; however, few of us ever forget the first time we hold our babies or the way we felt when we moved far from home, walking away from all that was familiar.

These transitions are the ones that can make us feel like strangers in our own lives. We wake up wondering who we are and how we got here. Even if we're grateful we're there, such seismic shifts in our existence understandably throw us off balance, making us question the fundamental elements of who we are.

As a mother whose first baby just turned one, the last year of my life has been one of searching. Who is this new baby, and how can I raise him well? Who am I now that I can't measure my worth by the checklist-paycheck productivity that's been my mainstay? What is really most important to me--and perhaps more precisely, how do I live my life in accordance with those most important things?

With great events, the aftermath is often as compelling as the moment itself. The event sparks the change, but it's what happens next that actually makes the change. Giving birth was the catalyst to a period of intense soul-searching that made me think about what is soul-satisfying. I think transitions unmoor us for good reason: if we were always tied down, we'd never have the chance to chart a new course.