Autumn Action

A well-supported principle of ecology is that the place where two ecosystems meet – between a forest and a stream, or a river and the sea – the diversity of life abounds. You’ll find more plants, more animals, more activity, courtesy of the mix.

I’m beginning to think the same principle holds true for the time around the change of seasons.

Fall fell on September 22 this year, and though afternoon temperatures here along the Gulf Coast are still mercilessly steamy, the air of autumn is all around.

The animals that seemed to loll through the end of summer’s heat (a wise tactic indeed – in the south you either take summer slowly or are struck dumb and still by its power) have been revived by the recent cool nights.

Here, at the change of seasons, birds and bugs (and bigger things, too) are teaching us about action and diversity in all their furry, feathered, whiskered and winged glory.

They know a change is coming.

They’re up and about and getting prepared.

They bicker and brag and celebrate and sing.

The opulence of summer has met the sweet breeze of autumn, and those of us lucky enough to be fed physically by the first and spiritually by the second . . . well, we need to get moving.

Now is the time to be outside – in this short reprieve between the hellish heat and the cruel cold – to be out looking and thinking and putting pen (or brush, or pixels, or child’s crayon if that’s what you have at hand) to paper.

We are the ones fortunate enough to be able to watch, listen, hear, taste, smell and see. We cannot capture the change, but it is both our responsibility and our reward to tell the story.

We can, each in our own way, share the joy and glory of the sweet place where two seasons meet, and mix, and move the world.


http://www.worldofcolorgallery.com


This piece was originally written for the October 2009 issue of Moonshine Magazine.

Got Any Change?

It is one of the great ironies of my life that, as a person who has trouble with change, I have fallen in love with a subject (the mercurial Mother Nature) that seems to be nothing but change.

I'm not sure why I have trouble with change. As a kid, I used to rearrange my room every few months and change my outfit every few hours. As an adult, though, I have the strangest reaction to change.

Take for example an average Thursday evening. All day at work I had been planning in the back of my head to spend the evening doing the laundry. I'd finally get through a whole week's laundry in one go. I really dislike doing laundry, but I was excited about it, in a cute, obsessive-compulsive sort of way.

Then (there's always a then, isn't there - it's the marker on the spot where the plot thickens) my husband called me at the office.

"I want to take you out to dinner," said my sensational spouse. "You're a wonderful woman and I want to take you on a nice date."

Now, I loved the compliment (the man has always been a stickler for accuracy, I might add), but the concept of a night out gave me pause. The little hamster that runs on the wheel that operates my brain stopped cold and said "Oh, no! What about the laundry?"

And I hate laundry. (Did I mention that? Oh, I did? Well, it deserves to be said twice.) That is the degree to which I have trouble with change. I mean, I got on board with the romantic date thing pretty quickly, but just the change in plans from what I had had planned was tough. It's like the brain hamster has trouble operating the clutch, disengaging one gear and switching to another are just a bit much for its furry little faculties.

So how is it that I can love so deeply nature, which seems to be nothing but change? For instance, off the top of my head:

-The planet is warming.
-The coyotes are actually expanding their range despite humans sprawling all over the landscape and paving paradise.
-Our nation that has suffered under a frighteningly anti-environmental administration has new hope, today, in a President whose platform is all about change for the better and who intends to do better through green projects.
-Even the moon changes shape every minute (predictable, yes, but still changing) and the sunlight on every flower I attempt to photograph changes every nanosecond.

Okay, that last one was cool. The fact that a flower or leaf or stone can appear wholly different because the sun is sashaying across the sky while our planet tilts toward or away from it in our annual Do-Si-Do, well that's just awesome.

I suppose, in the end, constant change means there will never be a shortage of surprises, never be a shortage of hope. Certainly there will never be a shortage of romance with this planet, because it is the heart's unchanging tendency, when presented with the glories of this place, to open in wonder and joy, awe and love.

Perhaps the lesson to learn is that embracing change is the only way to adapt and survive. (I'm reading Darwin's The Origin of Species via a daily post from dailylit.com - adapt, eat, and breed or sit still and wait to die seem to be the two main life choices there.)

Be like the coyote. Let the laundry pile up, go out into the world, experience the best it has to offer, and then try to give your best back to it. And then, if you're lucky enough to have been taken to a romantic dinner, and are therefore inclined to a little life change, go home and make more people like yourself!

www.worldofcolorgallery.com