Fallosity

Last week I thought I had experienced the ultimate fallish experience that North Carolina had to offer...

It was one of those magical days when the clouds, instead of hanging sullenly in the sky, come down to earth and add an intimate magic and stillness to everything. The now ragged fall foliage was smoothed out and given fresh glamour, the flaws hidden and just the last colorful bits peeking through. Even the giant mulch piles in the road construction sites sent up mysterious wreaths of steam.

I got to school early as I usually do, and (after lamenting a tragic lack of camera in the face of the most beautiful mauve bush covered in perfect dew drops) decided to go on a walk and get a little exercise and studying in. I grabbed my dampish exam study guide and headed down the trail through the woods that is part of the school property. It was so still, just my feet crunching on the gravel path and the anxious lowing of cows at neighboring farms. Something about tromping through the misty fields and down the path felt so right to me on such a deep level. A very Galbreathy thing to do… And the smell! I couldn’t get enough of the dark, loamy, woodsy smell. I stopped several places just to breath in that air.

And then I came around a corner and there were four wild turkeys huddled just at the point on the path that students aren’t supposed to pass. They looked for all the world like they were secret agents planning some covert action that would take them into the no man zone. As soon as they heard me they fled in pairs to opposite sides of the road and simply disappeared.

It was a perfect fall day and I thought it might be impossible to top… until this week.

This week I was once again at school early but not at such a propitious time for a walk. It was much colder and the sun was very close to setting… It took some convincing to get me out for a walk but I wanted to go over my massage sequences again in my head before class so I headed out, just for a short time. This time I stuck to the fields and had already gotten pretty far from the class building when things started to look a little pink in the sky in front of me. I looked over my shoulder and the whole western horizon was the most vibrant crimson color with delicate rose further to the south. It was so pretty, I kept checking over my shoulder as I walked, not wanting to miss anything. I finally turned around to go back and just stopped dead in my tracks. The pinkish hues were gone and it now looked like a giant golden hand was reaching out of the sky toward me. The reflection on the pond before me was stunning and I stood there, motionless, drinking the moment in while the muskrats swam across the pond sending golden ripples across the water, listening to the last few dry leaves of a nearby tree rattle in the breeze.

As the gold turned again to rich pink and began to fade, one brave muskrat soul began to nibble in the pond just below me. As if this wasn't already a beautiful scene, I heard geese over my left shoulder and a dozen or so flew right by me, so low that I thought for sure they were heading for the pond at my feet. They ended up banking sharply and flew off in another direction instead of landing. Just as I turned to trudge back to school, feeling the nip of the night chill through my jacket, the lights on the school porch came on in a most inviting way.

Experiencing both the passing of the fall foliage and the short lived beauty of the sunset recently have caused me to reflect on the necessary fact that beauty is fleeting and cannot last forever. Which is good. If it did, I would still be holding my breath in that field...