Leaves Turn

This morning while out on the Sunday morning walk with My Man and The Dog, I noticed the trees are finally losing this year's full head of hair.

As if to prove they can co-exist, autumn and winter bandied about uncomfortable cold gusts and serene still. Clouds puffed up in the sky, even so, the sun managed to break through, and I shuffled my feet through varying depths of fallen leaves.

My Man commented that this time of year always reminds him of his father. His father, like me, loves the cold. Before he moved to a warmer climate, autumn was a time to arrange excursions out of New York City and into the wilds of New England. Orange, red, yellow leaves signified winter - cold - was on its way.

Hurrah!

On the final stretch of the walk, I lost myself looking for the right words for the colours of the leaves. I wouldn't have thought it would be so difficult, yet each metaphor fell short. Some of the leaves were the colour of my leather knapsack in high school, or the chamois cloths my father kept in the garage for polishing his car, or like the colour of camels. Others were red like my earrings of coral balls or like the dark red of a ripe pomegranate or the seeds inside. In my head, I compared other leaves to the golden copper of The Dog's paws, chest, muzzle, belly and eyebrows. The orange and yellow leaves were the hardest of all for which to associate colours. Goldfish are too bright. The orange plastic handle of my scissors are a similar orange, but the orange plastic handle of my scissors is hardly universally known. I got excited by the thought of pumpkin orange, but then I thought that the colour of pumpkins - like the colour of camels and pomegranates and the seeds within - can vary from pumpkin to pumpkin, from camel to camel from pomegranate seed to pomegranate seed, and I became discouraged by the failings of metaphor. I firmly supplanted my poetic self with my pragmatic self and decided that if I have to describe autumnal leaves, I should stick with red, yellow, orange and brown. I cynically scoffed the poor substitution a metaphor makes.

Nevertheless, I kept searching for words. From a couple of sidelong glances, I could tell My Man wondered where my thoughts might be. I wasn't to allow an interruption.