Autumn Musings

The fall foliage is close to peaking in Northern Maine. This time of year the forests are teeming with wild life but it seems the humanoids come out in abundance to witness mother nature donning her glorious crimson and ochre gowns. The sounds of rustling dry leaves and squirrels gathering supplies are interrupted by shouts of small children, the gunshots of hunting season, and photographers clicking away behind a family that rarely enters the forest otherwise. I mutter to myself as I follow my black dog with an abnormally large stick. I realize that I am just one of the masses, I am after all simply procrastinating the rebuilding of my website. Deliberating what medium to work in today. Beating myself up for not sticking to a single project. Wondering what other side quest will conveniently cause me to deviate from my carefully laid plans to be productive.

Then I see it, my favorite spot, a large fallen and rotting elm tree with the perfect curve for my spine to rest against while I stare at the foliage and let my imagination whisper sweet nothings to me. I sit, and my dog lays down in the carnage of leaves. I lie back and stare through the branches into the sky. Then I am gone, musing about life, the afterlife, a squirrels life. What large scale things matter to them? Then my life seems trivial. I notice a bit of moss above me and stare hard at it, the shade of green, the way it might feel between my fingers. Imagine if I was tiny enough to crawl into its depth and sleep. I bet a spider could, or an ant. I bet they do. Would being an insect be all that bad? I wonder if they feel cold.

I take a deep breath and the decaying forest fills me with the ache of the changing seasons. It is all changing, quickly, something feels different about it this year. As though something large is coming. Something irreversible. I can’t help but feel like I’m standing on the edge of a precipice, I have climbed here, and I’m surveying the world. I want more than this. But to get it, I will need to leap. The last time I felt this way, I sat on that edge and refused to leap, so life pushed me. In my mind I would like to have a gentle climb down, but it doesn’t work that way.

Bam grumbles and stands up from her leafy bed. It is time to go I guess. Time to get to work…