Linden Leaves

Portraits of People and Places

Every fall the trees take their cue from the dwindling sunlight, the smell of frost on the wind, the slow chilling of their roots, and they begin to prepare themselves for the long, cold winter. Their leaves flash into brilliance for a few short weeks until, exhausted by this last effort, they give in to the insistent gusts of wind, loose their hold on the trees’ branches, and sink slowly toward the ground.

If you sit quietly in the cool fall morning, a rhythm emerges. The air crackles with crisp leaves, each waiting in nervous anticipation of the next breeze. Waiting, shivering, waiting, shivering. Then, in a random burst of playfulness, the breeze swells and sends little showers of new-fallen foliage to join its brethren in drifts on the ground. As the raucous chorus of agitation subsides, everything sinks again into nervous, crackling anticipation.

On one day each year, this rhythm shifts. On this one day, the Linden trees disrupt the pattern. These Linden trees have stood in stubborn refusal to join in the indiscreet rompings of the other trees. Their leaves barely shift in color. Their leaves care nothing for the playful whisperings of the breeze. Their leaves continue to perform their duties with barely a care for the frost-tipped air. Until this one day, that is. On this day, all the Linden trees relinquish their hold on their leaves in a common acknowledgement that winter has come. On this day, if you sit quietly in the cool fall morning, the air crackles with the sound of Linden leaves falling in a constant and unrelenting rhythm.

By evening, the Linden tree will be bare and its roots will be buried in a deep pile of discarded leaves. Winter is here.

Field Report, Chez Iris

Me and My Life

The various living things in this household spent the evening in wildly divergent ways. These are broken down by species as follows:

Homo sapiens:
Very little movement was observed. Television and laptops seemed to serve as the primary points of interest, particularly Masterpiece Theater and FriendFeed (which was refreshed at astonishing rates throughout the evening).

Felis F. catus:
Perhaps the most active member of the collection, this animal alternately chased bugs, demanded food, ran from place to place for no apparent reason, took several baths, schemed to acquire a rubber band (and was thwarted), and splashed water from its dish all over the floor (again, for no apparent reason).

Harmonia axyridis:
Though uninvited to the gathering, this species exhibited few inhibitions, though it is decidedly the most clumsy of the three species. Not understanding glass, it flings itself against the windows in an apparent attempt to rejoin its brethren out of doors. (It should be noted that the Homo sapiens would also prefer that the Harmonia axyridis would rejoin its out-of-doors brethren, though the Felis catus enjoys the current state of affairs.) After dark, this species spent the majority of its time knocking about within the lamp-shades of the lighted lamps, causing a perpetual tapping sound that goaded the Felis catus to ever more energetic attempts to leap several feet into the air. Amidst all of this, the Homo sapiens continued to refresh FriendFeed.

Further investigation is needed to determine the causes and extent of the FriendFeed obsession.

Learning a Lesson

Me and My Life

Looking back over the last several posts, I’ve noticed that things have been inordinately introspective around here lately. That’s not really what I set out to do here, but I suppose the beauty of a space like this is that I can make it melt into whatever form I need it to take for as long as that form suits me. And it suits me to write one more post in this mood. Just one. Then I’ll notice and write about stuff that’s outside of my head for a while.

So, I’ve been thinking. I never considered myself to be a very private person. In fact, more often than not I worry that I should keep more things to myself, that I’m far too ready to spill my guts for anyone who asks. But as it turns out, this is only true some of the time, with some people, about some topics. Pardon me for a minute while I laugh at myself for having missed the big, glaring clue that I only gave the URL to this blog out to about 10 people, and that I basically swore those 10 people to secrecy.

Lesson learned, I suppose. Now it’s time to take what I’ve learned and figure out what that means for this space.

Quite a Week

Me and My Life

It’s been an eventful week. In some ways, it’s been devastating. In some ways, it’s been one of the best weeks ever. And some of the time I couldn’t even decide which was which. So rather than clump them by “good” and “bad,” here’s a list of the week’s significant events in chronological order.

  • I learned that I do not have an under-active thyroid, Lyme disease, diabetes, or any of the standard auto-immune diseases. Excellent news, of course, but not very enlightening.
  • My brother got his heart broken and broke mine right along with it.
  • My best friend had a miscarriage.
  • I traveled half-way across the country and saw an uncle, aunt, and cousins for the first time in far too many years (and got a tour of the Adobe building in San Jose).
  • I presented at a national conference for the first time.
  • I basked in the company of friends I only get to see for a few days every year, then did that some more, and then did that even more. How could anyone get tired of that?

No wonder I’m beat. Even after two mini-naps today, there are no reserves left to get me through a night of being sociable. So now I’m curling up in the silence, soaking it into myself, wrapping myself in it, and preparing for whatever tomorrow might bring. In the best of all possible worlds, tomorrow will include more friends, a more cooperative heart rhythm, more energy, and even more time to hang out with friends. But really, I’d settle for just the “more time with friends” part.