(a wee male superb fairy wren and blackberry (brambles!) leaves)
I don’t know why - or maybe I do if I think about it enough - but when I saw the prompt ‘Leaf’ from Susannah Conway (Ink on My Fingers) #augustbreak2022 prompts this morning, the saying ‘turn over a new leaf’ sprang straight to mind. Start again. New beginnings. Try again. I have had a bit of a cold, nothing terribly dramatic, but just enough to add to some already present stressors. As I sat to write, feeling my own self pressure, I instead realised what I really needed was sunlight and movement. And both of those are free.
I popped on my walking shoes, picked up my sunglasses, and purposefully left my phone behind. Close to midday here in suburbia, the neighbourhood was surprisingly quiet, even as I walked past the primary school - they must have all been inside studying away. I was about to walk past the playground at the end of our street, when I realised there was nothing stopping me from sitting my bum down on the swing that my heart looks at longingly every time I walk past it. There was no one else around, no kiddies to fight over the seat for, and so I did. In the quiet, I sat, and I swang. Swang. Is that a word? Weird. I swang. I swang. I did swing. Stainless steel chain, perfectly oiled, plastic moulded seat, soft-fall underneath. I swung (swang? swinged?) until my inner thighs ached from holding my legs out in front of me, the seat too low to the ground for me to fold my legs back under. The air was still, the only sound was birds and the wind whistling through my silver hoop earrings. In front of me a myriad of trees demarcating the playground from the watershed. So many and varied leaves.
Walking around the catchment, there was 20 seconds or so of no human noise, no cars, mowers, obvious electrical appliances, just me and the soles of my shoes on the crete paths, and the musical chirps of red browed finches and fair wrens. It was like a giant sighhhh. I really felt like I could let some of the tension go in that short moment, it was just me, present, among trees (and leaves) and tiny birds living their best lives. Banksia line the path, their leaves shiny and leathery on top, soft suede underneath. I touch them lightly as I walk, a momentary connection. And then a bus, a tradesman’s ute, and a motorcycle. Reality.
Crossing the road back to home, a water fowl made very nervous noises about me being there and her wanting to cross the road, so I played lolly-pop lady for a moment, making sure she got across ok, smiling and cooing at her and wishing her well. Another momentary but grounding connection.
Walking home I remembered I had a blog a million years ago, and I was sure I wrote a post about a leaf sticking up in an odd place and avoiding being crushed. I thought I would do a search and see if the blog was still out there in the graveyard of the interwebs somewhere, and hilariously, it is. I have just spent an inordinate amount of time with 2008 and 2009 Natalie, and I had a deliriously delightful time. So much I had forgotten. I did write that post. Seems I have been a leaf watcher for some time.
This has all been rather scattered (like autumn leaves, no?), but I will try and bring it together with a couple of observations.
Although I live in a country where most of the native trees are evergreen, there is a deep importance to observing your own seasons and cycles. Sometimes that is a season where your leaves have changed colour and fallen to the ground, and you can reserve your strength and energy, rest, rejuvenate.
Sometimes that means like a tree needing to photosynthesise, some time in the sun, air in your hair, is the best way to move forward.
In every moment, every day, we have the opportunity to start anew, to take that leaf and turn it over, and turnover and turnover again.
Tell me your leaf stories, dear one.