I am blessed to live in a city that if you have feet, car, bicycle, or any other mobile device, you can be in some natural wilderness area in a short space of time.
At this time of year I look out from my balcony and see a patchwork quilt of oranges, reds and yellows with a touch of green rolling across the hills of popular large park, as trees change their colours and prepare for winter. Aside from the occasional walk in the park next door, I never went to the big park in autumn, mostly because of traffic.
Instead, every year my Mom and I would rent a car on Thanksgiving weekend and go to the Highlands to photograph the fall spectacular. The Highlands are a lot farther from home but are free of the tourists and crowds our nearby parks endure.
Everyone raves about the park I see from my balcony, only about a 20 minute drive, so one year I did do the prerequisite thing and visit a place near home. The man I was dating at the time offered to drive me there and check it out.
At least a mile to the park entrance, we encountered a traffic jam. An hour later we crawled through the park in a long stream of glittering metal. It was not very enjoyable, so my friend decided to exit this. He attempted to turn the car around, hit the curb and boom, a flat tire. It was a memorable fall day.
I miss the days with Mom, now a long time in the past. We always took a little lunch to eat, usually consumed quickly while shivering at a picnic table, or uncomfortably balancing cups and plates on the dash of the parked car while keeping the heater on. When the weather cooperated I got some great photo’s of leaves, wildlife and scenery and I felt totally replenished by the time I trudged back to work at the end of three days holiday.
I have great memories of childhood autumns as we never raked up leaves and threw them away (my Dad was an environmentalist long before the green revolution). Our yard was carpeted in beautiful colours and every summer we had the greenest grass and the most flowers in the neighbourhood.
There were interesting creatures under that carpet of leaves and we were very respectful of them. Dad said they were doing their job and it was our job to leave them alone! But we could look at them if we wished. Each leaf put back exactly where we picked it up.
I guess that is why I now look at the way nature places things and see a work of art.
