A First

On a recent, sleepy Saturday morning this fall, I rolled out of bed to do the daily dog ritual… dish out 2 scoops of food, drop it into his metal bowl so he hears it, and wait for him to come down from atop the stairs, where he has been monitoring the whole preparation process of his breakfast.  But before he crunches on the first few chunks, I manipulate an arthritis pill he’s not real fond of (the pill and the delivery method) into the back of his throat past his left cheek.  He spends a few minutes deciding if he still wants to maintain a relationship with me after such an act, and as usual and begrudgingly, he gives me the high sign with his eyes and begins to eat.  This is followed by what is equivalent to watching paint dry…Tuck eating his breakfast.  You see, Tuck use to wolf his food down, swallowing chunks whole with the occasional crunch of some kibble that didn’t make it down with the first swallow.  But these days, as his face whitens with experience, a bite is followed by a slow glance around the room to see if he is missing anything.  Another bite or two follows with the same visual sweep of his surroundings.  At thirteen, he can do as he pleases.  When the process is complete, he convinces his rear arthritic legs to raise him one more time, because his domain awaits outside the back door.  Once he is in the fresh morning air, he meanders around in search of just the right spot to do his business, followed up by close scrutiny of any new smells left behind from nocturnal critters passing through his yard the previous night.

It was that scenario that set the scene for my moment of peace for the day.  While Tuck covers his backyard territory, I plant myself on the couch, looking out the patio doors, waiting his return.  During this time I sit rather comatose, staring through my backyard into the park that adjoins.  Depending on my level of awareness, which depends on the time of morning, which depends on my nights sleep, I sit in appreciation for what my eyes take in at such an early hour.  Some mornings I’m drawn to the park pond and how the morning light dances off the fountain’s spray.  Sometimes it is the cadence of the geese as they march in search of food across the grass, or depending on the time of year, the mating rituals of said geese.  But these mornings, I’m watching the trees as they turn their fall colors and shed their leaves for another season.  There are three large Pin Oaks, a White Bud, a Purple Ash, and a Catalpa in the backyard.  The last one I started from seed.  The morning was calm, as most mornings begin.  Not much movement in the trees, as the breeze tends to pick up later in the morning.  I peruse my trees, looking for any squirrel action for entertainment while I continue my wait, while “the paint dries.”  With Tuck’s stamp of approval on the yard as shown by his nose pressing against the door, we both return where we began a short time ago…to bed.

A little while later when I get out of bed for real, I prepare my breakfast and plant myself in the same spot where I waited out Tuck’s return earlier that morning.  I enjoy looking out my back door most mornings as opposed to flipping on the TV.  A little ways into my cereal, I noticed that the Catalpa tree (the one I started from seed, which is now just shy of 30 feet tall) is dropping it’s leaves in short bursts, whereas earlier on Tuck watch, there was no visible gravitational action at all.  I became engrossed in the leaves I saw releasing their stems from their branches they were attached for the last seven months.  They are bigger than the surrounding Oak and Maple leaves which are not falling as vigorously as the Catalpa’s.  At first, the random falling of anywhere from one to six or eight leaves at a time would fall.  That would be followed by a short break in the action and then another flurry of activity would let loose.  I became memorized by this magical, somewhat random dance, and could not look away.  During this performance unfolding before me, a question popped into my head, from wherever questions come from…”Had I had ever actually witnessed the exact moment a leaf let go from its tree?”

With that in mind, I began to watch intently to see if I could actually zoom in on one leaf and wait for its separation and free fall.  Minutes went by thinking it wasn’t meant to be.  I continued to see others tumble through the air in my periphery, but did not see mine let go.  But then it happened.  Maybe a puff of wind nudged it just so or the vibration of a squirrel jumping from one tree branch to another set it free.  Who knows, but I saw something for the first time I don’t believe I’ve ever seen before.  Now this event wouldn’t stack up against other visual firsts, like seeing a zombie walk out of a swamp in the cool, damp, fog laden air around midnight on Halloween, or while watching your neighbor shooting off fireworks, as you follow a bottle rocket enter your garage, followed by white smoke and flames, while you sit in denial that it’s your garage.  My leaf moment was much more of an “Aha.” rather than an “Oh shit!” moment.

Their flight patterns were like snowflakes, no two the same, as they fell to the ground.  Some slipped back and forth, as if hiking down switchbacks on a steep canyon trail.  Others did downward pirouettes, lead by the long stem of the leaf.  A few seemed to just glide off in a straight line, as if landing on a runway in the grass.  Still others had random tumblings, like watching someone dance that has no rhythm.  But they were all as graceful as the one before them or the one that followed.

The science teacher in me wanted to know why.  Why did these leaves on this particular tree, at this particular time, decide to drop and have such an impact on this particular person?  Was it the first hard freeze the previous night?  Did it have anything to do with living in the shade of a larger tree?  As you might imagine, a breeze increased the rate of fall.  Was it just a Catalpa thing?  Was I attracted to this unfolding story before me due to how many times I was dropped as a baby?  Or was it really important to know at all?  I gravitated toward the latter.  It wasn’t really all that important.  What was important was that I was there at the right time, to participate in my moment of peace for the day.  It may not be as spectacular as what I imagine atoms colliding would look like, but following one leaf as it strikes another, and then colliding with others was just as spectacular.  And in a few seconds there is a brief cascade of leaves that ignites the anticipation for the next showing, even before this one is over.  By the afternoon where there were dozens upon dozens of leaves, the tree was bare.  Leaving only the stringy bean pods attached, whose time will come as well. 

My baby Catalpa.

And why did this particular event draw me in?  Who knows?  I choose not to question some happenings as much as I use to, just take them in.  It is what it is.