Fall is my favorite season. And it's all about the colors of the leaves like this yellow-veined Red Oak I found yesterday on a walk. But I look forward to the chill in the air as I eye our stack of wood out by the driveway which will soon warm the wood stove. When I lived in the rainy state of Washington, fall on the coast was obvious but not spectacular. Where I live now in New England, the falls are destination-worthy as the landscape lights up. The yearly infestation of leaf-peppers mostly New Yorkers, and drivers from Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire clogs the roads of our Vacationland state. It's a mystery whomever started calling my wild state Vacationland which has been on our license plates since 1936. At least it's not Live Free or Die, New Hampshire's motto. No matter how other's describe my beloved Maine, idling behind throngs of cars traveling at the speed of my old dog climbing the stairs, is annoying. But I understand. I, too, have been otherworldly absorbed, totally mesmerized by the vibrant colors of the local trees in the fall. A flush of color so intense I can almost taste it. Or merge with it on some spiritual level, absorbing the intensity and hue, brevity and transformation of life it represents. There's a giant deciduous tree right down the road from my home. It's forty feet tall and lime green all summer long. And yet, as the temperature dips and right before a Nor'Easter lashes the branches bare, that tree gets painted by the hand of God. No doubt in my mind he/she/they loaded up a paintbrush the size of a house and splashed lemon yellow on one half and fiery orange on the other. I used to think what a remarkable tree that was. Half and half. Until I looked closely to see that it's actually two trees pretty much sharing the same root space. A maple and an oak. That made me think about my husband and me. Although he's twelve inches taller than me, one hundred and fifty ponds heavier with grey hair that used to be red, we have become kind of like one tree, over the years and for better or worse. But not really. With each turn of the seasons and years, driven by biology as well as our individual rhythms of fears, loves and dreams, our lives are indeed merged yet remain unique. When the chlorophyl no longer sustains the color green, when the leaves of who we are morf into brilliant yellow and red the color of my lips that kiss my husband, when our brilliant leaves are dancing in the sunlight and waving at the moon, that's when I can still see us as not just one, but two.
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