Grateful for Late Leaves and Hints of Spring

The leaves are turning late this years. Some fell in August while others are still green. Still others are brilliantly colored, as we have come to expect at this time of year. But it's an odd fall display. If you pay attention to these things, you think you might know why.

I've just finished reading Field Notes from a Catastrophe and as I write, it's hard to keep things in perspective. Although I am well-read in climate change matters, more news about the fact that we are knowingly destroying the ability of the earth to support our species never fails to make me feel unsettled. The idea that we live with such a reality and nothing changes makes life seem like so much sleepwalking. The fact that the scientific community is so alarmed, and yet can't get our leaders to lead enrages me.  

" . . . at 378 parts per million, current CO2 levels are unprecedented in recent geological history. (The previous high, of 299 parts per million, was reached around 325,000 years ago.) It is believed that the last time carbon dioxide levels were comparable to today's was three and a half million years ago, during what is known as the mid-Pliocene warm period, and it is likely that they have not been much higher since the Eocene, some fifty million years ago. In the Eocene, crocodiles roamed Colorado and sea levels were nearly three hundred feet higher than they are today."

On this beautiful November day I took a break from reading to attend church and muck around the yard a bit. Jennifer's sermon was on that perennial November theme: gratitude. I took it to heart and believe that, yes, I do sometimes feel really sad and really happy at the same time. Even when my reading and thinking is so serious, I can feel an awe that delights. I am grateful. I feel connected. I know that nothing can be what it is in isolation.

Today, I muse. I look with awe and wonder at the colors of the season, the way the warm sunshine sets off the gold-hued leaves, and I found little surprises that make me smile as I look closely at what's growing in my yard.

I am grateful for the Christmas ferns that rise in swirls from my yard deep with acorns and leaves.

I am grateful for the row of many bee balm plants, growing now from the rhizomes of the one that grew in that spot this spring. Although it was so hot and dry that the mother plant's blooms were short lived, it did persist to give me this hope for the future. 

I am grateful for the wild confrey that's coming up in the front yard when they only plants of its species bloomed in the back yard this past spring. Its sticky seed rode a deer to the front yard, I suppose. The deer must have dropped the seed even while the hungry beast ate the turtleheads down to nubbins.

In early spring, before the heat taxed other plants, the golden ragwort bloomed from one spot on the edge of the yard and was able to spread its seed far and wide. I see the round leaves of golden ragwort growing in clumps in the flower beds and yard and rain garden.

I am in awe of the green tomatoes turning red in the window. I am grateful for the tasty tomato sandwich I had for lunch.

I am grateful for the large trees in my yard that shade me with their giant yellow umbrella of leaves. They will fall and I will mulch then. New leaves will sprout again in spring.

But I can't say that I'm not also frightened about what summer will hold. It may well be another record year, and then another. Can I know this and live, aware that we are interconnected and yet, that something is not right? Interconnected, and grateful?