Missed Opportunities

Sometimes a single thought inspires me to write, today that thought is simply lost or missed opportunities.

Out of the office window, I have this view. The camera, or at least my mobile phone camera never captures the intensity of colour. This purple beech tree looks stunning in the late October sunshine. As I watched the tree, individual leaves were falling to earth in the gentle breeze. Raucous jays frequent this tree regularly, their feathers perfectly reflecting this trees' leaves of many colours throughout the season.  It struck me that as I set off from home this morning, those leaves were on that tree, high, aloft, out of reach. Now as I dwell upon the view, they are shed, their work is done for this year. If I could only follow each leaf down I could pick it up as it landed, reflect in it's form, one single human contact in its short life. 

 

Observation struck me that I don't think I've ever seen a leaf detach itself from a tree. Countless are the times I've seen leaves blowing in the wind from the direction of a single tree, but never that absolute moment when the Rubicon is crossed, the attached detaches and is free, opportunities thereafter are limited much like a mayfly flying free for a brief moment in time. 

With this in mind I spied a single leaf, on one of the highest branches. Fluttering flag-like in the breeze I observed for five or so minutes. It clung on to its branch, waving its resilience to changing atmospheric pressure. Inevitably work intervened, however when I returned to my observation just half an hour later, the leaf had gone. I'd missed that opportunity, that final sealing of the abscission layer, and the ejection of the leaf by its parent plant. And my wish to see it fall.  Somehow this felt like a metaphor for life, look away however briefly, and you will miss those opportunities presented to your field of vision. 

I wonder how many leaves this tree will shed in the next 8 hours while I watch it? There is a steady confetti of movement. Three more in the time it took me to write that last sentence. I'm looking intently, the lower branches still thick with foliage gently sway in the gusty breeze. Suddenly there is a crackle of sound, branches oscillate to the gust, a dozen single leaves now fire off into the air like cadmium orange mayflies. Pirouetting almost as if the joy of freedom is too much, their hue is reflected against the intense blue sky, they dance higher before Earth's gravity inevitably draws them down, down out of sight, down to terra firma. 

It is a childlike fascination watching this performance. Simple yet memorizing; equally as I gaze upwards I see new buds, short dagger shapes clinging firmly to the rapidly defoliating branch. In six months they too will be allowed to unfurl in their moment of glory. It will be May, they will bring a burst of fresh citrus green before darkening to that rich burgundy tone. The winter to come, now being ushered in by the breeze, will be over. The falling of the leaves is therefore not the end, simply the beginning of the next cycle in the natural world.