The rain has stopped for now. The skies across the Tidewater have cleared. Yesterday, in the drizzle the leaves were dull and drab. Today the sun, frantically highlighting each color in every tree, in a battle against time.
Here bright orange and yellow, there a snap of red and the Sweet Gum with a brushstroke of purple, all in a relentless progression from green to gold to brown. Leaves that just a week ago fell slowly and singly, now faster, a mad rush, one following another in a mindless, crowded cascade. Their destination, oblivion.
We do not all share a common past, and we won’t all share the future, youth longs for tomorrow, age mourns yesterday. All we have is today, this season. Now, is our common denominator.
Today, I side with the sun, and its frantic effort to capture the present. I know full well that it is just a moment before color fades to gray.
I do not long for summer and the sparkle of the sun on the Chesapeake, it is easy to dwell in the past, to lament the way things were, and fail to realize what is. Nor do I dread the approach of winter’s bleak reality.
There is however a promise in the future. The mindless leaves in their headlong destruction, and the cold gray of winter will inevitably bring that fragrant warm breath, that hope of green that yields spring. I am grateful for the colors and contrast that is autumn in Virginia, thankful for now, for today.