Free Fallin'
The lessons Autumn offers us on letting go...
August is wrapping up as I write this. Not the heat. The stifling heat lingers. But the nights thankfully begin to cool off. I’m writing on preservation these days and learning that some acts of preservation are about letting go versus keeping.
This week the Redwoods of Big Sur towered and swayed in my thoughts. (I capitalize Redwoods out of respect for my elders.) Two decades ago, I travelled to the American Southwest for a coastal wedding. I’ve longed ever since to return (next time with my kid in tow.) To give you an idea of the majesty of giant sequoias—what the famous naturalist John Muir named “the noblest tree species in the world”—here’s a vintage photograph of Kim Novak standing among them with Jimmy Stewart, an actor I’ve had a crush on since about age twelve. It’s a still from Hitchcock’s iconic film, Vertigo.
Vertigo is no joke (and it’s a gripping, visually stunning film.) I can attest that staring at Redwoods would make anyone dizzy with awe. Tree trunks wider than the convertible I rented along with a rustic, one-room cabin at Ripplewood Resort, sparsely furnished but warmed by a fireplace. I still drool recalling the breakfast at the resort’s café across the road where I gorged on authentic Mexican cuisine beside trees from which lemons and limes depended like colourful earrings. I’d always heard they grew on trees. Something else entirely to witness it. And that citrus perfume!
But it was landing in San José that pinged my hippocampus this week. I’d never seen landscape like that from above. Honestly thought I was landing on the moon, the geography was so alien to my consciousness. San José airport lies in the Santa Clara Valley nestled between two mountain ranges: the Santa Cruz and the Diablo. I got lost trying to leave San José. (I didn’t know the way!) I found Old Coastal Highway 1 almost by accident and slowly snaked its curves all the way past Carmel-by-the-Sea down to Big Sur. Because it was October, I made the drive in fog. How closely that ribbon of road hugged the coast and the breathtaking vistas of the Pacific remained invisible to me until the next morning’s sunshine.
What affected me more and what lingers still was the fragrance of that drive. The intoxicating scent of eucalyptus trees with a chaser of sea salt. I drank my first mojito—well, two, downed very quickly if I’m honest—after finally arriving by nightfall to the Henry Miller Memorial Library where the wedding’s welcome night celebrations were already underway. Getting lost had delayed me and I needed the liquid courage. My name was about to be called to take the stage and perform, as other guests had been doing all evening. When my turn came, I made a small speech and sang an old Irish wedding song a capella, fog curling my locks and wetting my lips like those mojitos. The guest who kindly crushed fresh mint into my glass was a dapper gent and a Richard Dreyfus doppelgänger. My hair smelled of eucalyptus, cedar, and campfire smoke all week long.
Two years ago, when my kid and I relocated to Nova Scotia, I was struck again by an unfamiliar sight from the plane window. While the moving truck packed our things in Ontario, our closest friends once again graciously took my newly-minted teen under their wing while I drove our old vehicle 2000 kilometres to Halifax alone. Within a week, I found a place to live and flew back to Ontario. I cleaned and locked the door for the last time to the home my child had entered at the age of one. We bid both joyous and tearful goodbyes to my dear parents and our golden friends and boarded a flight, together with our crated dog, bound for Canada’s Ocean Playground.
Landing in Halifax is different from landing in Toronto. Toronto is all skyscrapers, cars, highways, box stores and homes, dotted with tiny puddles of backyard pools. From above, the looming city and its concrete chaos pulls your eye from vast, open stretches of surrounding farmland.
Ever heard the phrase you can’t see the forest for the trees? That’s landing in Halifax. Rather, trees are all you can see. You sail over a green carpet that spreads all the way to the Atlantic. About 75% of this province is forest and the East coast is home to a harmonious mix of deciduous and evergreen.
I currently rent a place on a quiet, tree-lined street and I notice people keep their lawns pretty tidy here. The street is a dead end. Maybe one person owns a leaf blower (or hires a landscaping service that uses one.) It’s the most annoying sound to me come autumn. Not just because the din itself is incessant and obnoxious. More so because it’s completely unnecessary and climate-wise, highly counterintuitive.
Deciduous trees shed their leaves each autumn for a reason. For many reasons. And one of the best is to provide winter shelter and protection for tiny creatures and pollinators and encourage soil health, two things humans and the more-than-human very much need. This week I read a piece by journalist Manuela Saragosa in which she astutely asks, Where Have All the Insects Gone? Their disappearance ought to be everyone’s concern. We must do whatever we can to help protect our immediate environments, including lawns if we have them or any green space. It’s worth convincing landlords to consider approaches that don’t include leaf-blowing or weedkillers that not only harm soil, plant and insect life, but humans, too.
Since moving here, I’ve learned the Conservative Government of Nova Scotia continues to approve the spraying of glyphosate pesticides in the province’s forests. Glyphosate is an invention of Monsanto and some studies have linked the pesticide to cancer in humans. Anyone remember the film Erin Brockovich? The real-life paralegal and environmental activist has also written warnings about its use.
Before parting Ontario, I embraced the No Mow Movement and diligently left my lawn alone, much to the chagrin of my surrounding neighbours. If they thought laziness was at the heart of the visual ‘chaos’ surrounding the exterior of our old home, I did not disabuse them. I smiled and winked at the occasional shaking of heads. Maybe I imagined the judgment, but I felt a decrease in disdain when I planted a No Mow May sign in my yard to validate why I let my lawn grow wild each spring.
Mainstream media appears to be catching on. Last fall The Guardian, New York Times, and the Washington Post all published various pieces on Why You Should Be Lazy and Leave Your Leaves in the Yard. I heartily concur. Even better than managing a grassy lawn is re-imagining your yard by planting native plants and pollinating flowers to increase biodiversity. We all could do with a little less lawn maintenance and a lot more ecological sustenance.
Scientifically, we know leaves lose their trees through a process known as abscission, and yes, that word shares a root with ‘scissors’: abscindere, meaning to cut off. Abscission is the natural process in plants that leads to the falling of leaves and dropping of ripe fruit. The word deciduous also holds a Latin origin: decidere, to fall down or off. Abscission helps deciduous trees conserve water in their trunks throughout periods of harsher climate, like winter. Winds and gales increase during harsh seasons. Deciduous trees make it easier for such gales to blow through their branches unimpeded to prevent limb breakage. On the ground, leaves provide cover and their decomposition into mulch helps moisten soil that’s already suffering increased drought from extreme heat and wildfires. For the creatures that spend winter within and around that soil, every little bit helps and fallen leaves help big time.
Philosophically, psychologically, and in myriad other ways: the act of shedding leaves offers lessons humans might absorb about renewal, literally turning a new leaf, and why it’s good to share parts of ourselves. Trees gift our ecosystem in every season. In autumn, it’s all about letting go. Are there things we might release and liberate each Fall to the benefit of ourselves and/or others?
Spring doesn’t hold a monopoly on out with the old and the ecological and spiritual benefits of minimalism. Autumn is a perfect time to donate old coats, boots, hats, and mittens, sharing any surplus with those who may need it, especially once the cold hits. Getting down to the bare bones of something means reaching its core and deeper, fundamental truths. We might consider baring ours souls or pondering what exactly we need to survive? What do we hold onto that’s a better idea to shed or share? How might we let winds blow through us versus against us? Can we bend instead of break?
Alongside trees, we can ready ourselves for colder months, physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Indigenous Peoples have always carried such wisdom. The coming winter was a time for rest, attending to spiritual and mental health after all the hard labour of planting in Spring, growing in Summer, and harvesting in Fall.
Like Clare Grogan sings on Hyacinths and Thistles by The 6ths, “trees do a striptease, summer is ending.” Deciduous trees aren’t shy about getting naked. What might we reveal about ourselves or even to ourselves as autumn unfolds?
In my youth, Autumn was my favourite season. Spring almost usurped its crown when my child was born in May 2009 after a long infertility struggle. But for the past three decades, my heart’s been blanketed by snowy Winter where it firmly resides. For me, the only thing better than the crunch of leaves underfoot is that of packed snow.
Lately in the northern hemisphere, we almost skip Spring and Autumn far too quickly. Each year their duration feels briefer than the seasons of my childhood. Yet another reason we must savour and salvage what we can while letting go of what’s no longer needed. We might let stuff slide off our shoulders and fall to the wayside. Autumn is an invitation to unburden ourselves. If doing so provides comfort or shelter to others, all the better.
For me, Autumn remains the hue-happy harbinger of Winter, an old friend I annually welcome. This time of year feels like slipping on a handmade cardigan. I cannot wait to leap into Nature’s Dear John Letter to Summer, the colourful palette of her final kiss as frost meets the last of the sun’s dwindling warmth to paint all the glorious leaves I won’t be raking. I hope you’ll join me. Your yard—its earth and all the creatures above, within, and beneath it—will thank you. Maybe eventually formerly reluctant neighbours might, too.
Trees do their part. Let’s do ours and put away our rakes and leaf-blowers. Let the leaves fall where they may. As August closes, I wish everyone a happy tail-end of Summer. Let Autumn in all its glory descend upon us!
Beautifully written Nancy. I wish you had shared more photographs.