I know internet forums aren't the ideal place for posting essays, but some posters here have enjoyed some I have posted in the past. Here is one after spending a week in Acadia during the (near) peak fall foliage.
I just spent a week in Maine, steeped in the legendary New England fall.
Much has been written about those trees and their gloriousness this time of year. It's not hard to see why. It's an inspirational experience. It's also hard to adequately capture in either words or with a camera.
I'm not going to even try.
This is a different story inspired by my trip, and it requires some backstory.
At age 10, I didn't usually watch television in the morning. A normal school day was just waking up, putting on some clothes, and walking to school. Mom would try to make me eat breakfast somewhere between getting dressed and walking out the door, but it seldom worked.
But that particular October day, I would be skipping school. Mom owned a pet shop that she ran by herself, and she needed some help. She had to drive to Amarillo to pick up a shipment of live fish arriving at the airport and make some other stops for supplies. On days like this, she would let me miss school to work at the pet store while she was gone.
Trading a seven-hour school day, punctuated by two recesses and PE, for a ten-hour day of cleaning animal cages and doing all the work of running a pet store seems like an uneven swap, but I was thrilled at the time.
Stranger to our modern sensibilities, I am sure, is the whole idea of not only leaving a ten-year-old alone but also putting them in charge of a shop. But I was well trained in all of the responsibilities, having spent many of my non-school days there. For me, it all seemed normal. For my parents, whose youth included the Great Depression, the normalcy was probably even more so.
Dad had to drop out of school in the third grade to help on the farm. Mom made it to eighth grade, when her sister helped her forge a birth certificate showing her to be three years older so she could get a job. From that perspective, having me miss a day of school to work with them a dozen times a year had to have seemed pretty insignificant.
Today, child protective services would be called for this situation. To be clear, I am not saying any of this was abuse. I look at it as quite the opposite, actually. I learned many good lessons, including building confidence. It's just important to point out that times have changed.
Back to that October morning, Mom made cinnamon rolls before she left, probably because she knew that was a breakfast I wouldn't pass up. So while I ate breakfast, I watched TV and what I saw I have carried with me for close to 50 years.
Willard Scott, the Today Show weatherman, gave a fall foliage update for New England. While he forecasted peak color updates, they showed footage of trees with dazzling reds, oranges, and yellows. I was mesmerized. I had no idea such a spectacular fall display existed.
The most notable thing about trees in the Texas Panhandle is the lack of them. That's not to say none, just not many. The six-block walk from our house to the pet store had some trees, mostly American elms. The nicer parts of town had some more varieties, but they were spottily dispersed and certainly no thick stands.
As I walked past those weather-hardened elms, I studied their faded, unhappy green leaves. I knew they would soon turn pale yellow, with brown spots that quickly overtook them. Willard Scott would not be giving updates on their peak, and absolutely no one would be booking travel plans to see them.
I thought about how lucky the people in New England were to have those magical fall colors, and I'd like to say that I promised myself that one day I would see it for myself. But I know that isn't true. For a kid growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, thinking about a trip to New England seemed as unlikely as a trip to the moon.
A few autumns later, I found myself horseback along a river in Canadian, Texas. If you haven't been to the Texas Panhandle, we use the word river pretty loosely. You won't find fly fishing or boats of any size, including kayaks. Its water runs shallow and in braided channels. You could walk across almost all of this river and never risk water reaching the top of your boots.
But in certain wind-protected draws, there is enough water to sustain an oasis of trees. Unremarkable by most standards, these trees had considerable height and diversity for our part of the world. Enough so to give me my first real-world experience in bright autumn colors. There were splashes of red and some orange. And the yellows were bright and brilliant, like they were celebrating their last days rather than just giving up and praying for the end. While not expansive, their scarcity in the landscape made them stand out that much more.
If it sounds like I am being negative about the rest of the panhandle, that's not my intent. It has its own beauty and can dazzle in other ways. But if you are looking for the beauty of trees in the fall, it's pretty slim pickings. I resolved to go back to this river spot every fall.
I never did.
College days certainly didn't spark any hopes of witnessing a New England fall. Trips to the pawn shop for rent money don't coincide with daydreaming about vacations.
Then came 25 years of working in the cotton gin industry. The cotton harvest is in the fall, and nobody in that business is taking vacation trips anywhere then. The only leaves we get concerned with in that business are the leaves dropping off the cotton plants and how much of it ends up in the bale.
This year 45 years after Williard Scott first tantalized me with thoughts of a New England fall I finally got my chance to see it in person.
I promised at the outset I wouldn't try to capture it with words, but it definitely lived up to the hype. The colors were explosive everywhere I looked; my brain struggled to process it all. In valleys, shadowing lakes and rivers (honest to goodness, real rivers!), alongside the coast, dotting the cliffs, roadside, dumpster side, and everywhere else, it was just loaded with the most brilliant colors of fall.
The first day, the camera roll filled with image after image. As the week progressed, picture-taking slowed dramatically. Not because it wasn't picture-worthy, but because I realized I couldn't capture it all or do it justice with my phone.
But something else happened over those seven days. It started to become normal. That startled me. Not so much the idea that it could become normal. I assume the long-time locals appreciate the fall change, but I doubt they ever pull over dozens of times a day to soak it in. It startled me because it was happening to me, and it happened so quickly.
A few days into the trip, I'd drive down a road without giving the trees any more thought than I would open pastures back home in Oklahoma. Or my thoughts would turn to impatience with being stuck in traffic, irritation about not finding parking, or being bothered by which restaurants or shops had already closed for the season. That's when those trees began inspiring other thoughts.
Anthropologists tell us the human mind has evolved to focus on problems. Rightly so, I suppose. It was far better for our ancestors to pay attention to the threats rattling in the bushes than to how sweet a flower smelled.
I recently saw someone put a black dot in the center of a painting and ask viewers what they saw. They all said the black dot. None of them commented on all of the other wonderful parts of the painting. I laughed at both the absurdity and reality.
Then, a few days later, I found myself stuck in a line of cars waiting on road construction, surrounded by trees I had waited almost the entirety of my life to see, and where was my focus? On the delay. On the black dot.
We get what we focus on. If we focus on the problems, our lives seem full of problems. That's the easy thing. That's what we are wired to do. The good things snatch our focus for a little bit, but our natural tendencies don't let us linger there. Before long, our focus goes back to the problems, and soon that is what we see. And it can seem like that is all we have Problems. Irritations. Obstacles. Threats.
It's impossible to walk into an otherwise clean room and not see the sock lying in the middle of the floor. And you can't gaze over a neatly mowed lawn and not see the weed sprouting in the middle. And the flaws in our co-workers, spouses, family, neighbors, and friends well, they might as well have a Hollywood-sized spotlight shining right on them.
Tying it back to the backstory, I've often thought about what my Depression-era parents would think of the life I have. They would scoff at me complaining about the price of bacon. They would marvel at being able to make free long-distance calls, much less video chats with family anywhere in the world. They would be happy I made it to New England in the fall. And they would shake their heads at how little responsibility I allow my kids to have.
But if they were here now, with all the many blessings of modern life, they too would find it normal after a while. Surely it would take more than a week, but eventually the modern conveniences around them would be taken for granted. And they would begin seeing problems. The almost fully stocked fridge being out of ice cream. The clothes dryer taking a little longer than it used to. The internet being a little slower than they like. Problems that, if they could even dream of them, 100 years ago they would have wished for.
I am not dismissing all of our modern-day problems as insignificant. And I'm not suggesting that we all start overlooking problems. We couldn't if we tried, and it would bring unwanted consequences.
But if we aren't careful about intentionally shifting our focus to the good, soon all we see is problems around us and in each other and that is certain to lead down a road of unhappy consequences.
I know some people who don't struggle with their focus at all. I am happy for them, albeit a little envious, too. But maybe you are like me and need a new perspective, or a reminder to look for the good in your life and the people in it. If so, I hope this story does that for you.
I will always be grateful to have seen the New England autumn in person. It was special. But most of the pictures I took in Maine will exist only on my phone. I will look back at some on occasion, but for many I will just wonder why I bothered taking them. Still, I will cherish the memories of that experience and try to keep them vivid in my mind.
But what I really hope sticks with me is not just the beauty of the trees, but the lesson they reminded me about where to put my focus.
I just spent a week in Maine, steeped in the legendary New England fall.
Much has been written about those trees and their gloriousness this time of year. It's not hard to see why. It's an inspirational experience. It's also hard to adequately capture in either words or with a camera.
I'm not going to even try.
This is a different story inspired by my trip, and it requires some backstory.
At age 10, I didn't usually watch television in the morning. A normal school day was just waking up, putting on some clothes, and walking to school. Mom would try to make me eat breakfast somewhere between getting dressed and walking out the door, but it seldom worked.
But that particular October day, I would be skipping school. Mom owned a pet shop that she ran by herself, and she needed some help. She had to drive to Amarillo to pick up a shipment of live fish arriving at the airport and make some other stops for supplies. On days like this, she would let me miss school to work at the pet store while she was gone.
Trading a seven-hour school day, punctuated by two recesses and PE, for a ten-hour day of cleaning animal cages and doing all the work of running a pet store seems like an uneven swap, but I was thrilled at the time.
Stranger to our modern sensibilities, I am sure, is the whole idea of not only leaving a ten-year-old alone but also putting them in charge of a shop. But I was well trained in all of the responsibilities, having spent many of my non-school days there. For me, it all seemed normal. For my parents, whose youth included the Great Depression, the normalcy was probably even more so.
Dad had to drop out of school in the third grade to help on the farm. Mom made it to eighth grade, when her sister helped her forge a birth certificate showing her to be three years older so she could get a job. From that perspective, having me miss a day of school to work with them a dozen times a year had to have seemed pretty insignificant.
Today, child protective services would be called for this situation. To be clear, I am not saying any of this was abuse. I look at it as quite the opposite, actually. I learned many good lessons, including building confidence. It's just important to point out that times have changed.
Back to that October morning, Mom made cinnamon rolls before she left, probably because she knew that was a breakfast I wouldn't pass up. So while I ate breakfast, I watched TV and what I saw I have carried with me for close to 50 years.
Willard Scott, the Today Show weatherman, gave a fall foliage update for New England. While he forecasted peak color updates, they showed footage of trees with dazzling reds, oranges, and yellows. I was mesmerized. I had no idea such a spectacular fall display existed.
The most notable thing about trees in the Texas Panhandle is the lack of them. That's not to say none, just not many. The six-block walk from our house to the pet store had some trees, mostly American elms. The nicer parts of town had some more varieties, but they were spottily dispersed and certainly no thick stands.
As I walked past those weather-hardened elms, I studied their faded, unhappy green leaves. I knew they would soon turn pale yellow, with brown spots that quickly overtook them. Willard Scott would not be giving updates on their peak, and absolutely no one would be booking travel plans to see them.
I thought about how lucky the people in New England were to have those magical fall colors, and I'd like to say that I promised myself that one day I would see it for myself. But I know that isn't true. For a kid growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, thinking about a trip to New England seemed as unlikely as a trip to the moon.
A few autumns later, I found myself horseback along a river in Canadian, Texas. If you haven't been to the Texas Panhandle, we use the word river pretty loosely. You won't find fly fishing or boats of any size, including kayaks. Its water runs shallow and in braided channels. You could walk across almost all of this river and never risk water reaching the top of your boots.
But in certain wind-protected draws, there is enough water to sustain an oasis of trees. Unremarkable by most standards, these trees had considerable height and diversity for our part of the world. Enough so to give me my first real-world experience in bright autumn colors. There were splashes of red and some orange. And the yellows were bright and brilliant, like they were celebrating their last days rather than just giving up and praying for the end. While not expansive, their scarcity in the landscape made them stand out that much more.
If it sounds like I am being negative about the rest of the panhandle, that's not my intent. It has its own beauty and can dazzle in other ways. But if you are looking for the beauty of trees in the fall, it's pretty slim pickings. I resolved to go back to this river spot every fall.
I never did.
College days certainly didn't spark any hopes of witnessing a New England fall. Trips to the pawn shop for rent money don't coincide with daydreaming about vacations.
Then came 25 years of working in the cotton gin industry. The cotton harvest is in the fall, and nobody in that business is taking vacation trips anywhere then. The only leaves we get concerned with in that business are the leaves dropping off the cotton plants and how much of it ends up in the bale.
This year 45 years after Williard Scott first tantalized me with thoughts of a New England fall I finally got my chance to see it in person.
I promised at the outset I wouldn't try to capture it with words, but it definitely lived up to the hype. The colors were explosive everywhere I looked; my brain struggled to process it all. In valleys, shadowing lakes and rivers (honest to goodness, real rivers!), alongside the coast, dotting the cliffs, roadside, dumpster side, and everywhere else, it was just loaded with the most brilliant colors of fall.
The first day, the camera roll filled with image after image. As the week progressed, picture-taking slowed dramatically. Not because it wasn't picture-worthy, but because I realized I couldn't capture it all or do it justice with my phone.
But something else happened over those seven days. It started to become normal. That startled me. Not so much the idea that it could become normal. I assume the long-time locals appreciate the fall change, but I doubt they ever pull over dozens of times a day to soak it in. It startled me because it was happening to me, and it happened so quickly.
A few days into the trip, I'd drive down a road without giving the trees any more thought than I would open pastures back home in Oklahoma. Or my thoughts would turn to impatience with being stuck in traffic, irritation about not finding parking, or being bothered by which restaurants or shops had already closed for the season. That's when those trees began inspiring other thoughts.
Anthropologists tell us the human mind has evolved to focus on problems. Rightly so, I suppose. It was far better for our ancestors to pay attention to the threats rattling in the bushes than to how sweet a flower smelled.
I recently saw someone put a black dot in the center of a painting and ask viewers what they saw. They all said the black dot. None of them commented on all of the other wonderful parts of the painting. I laughed at both the absurdity and reality.
Then, a few days later, I found myself stuck in a line of cars waiting on road construction, surrounded by trees I had waited almost the entirety of my life to see, and where was my focus? On the delay. On the black dot.
We get what we focus on. If we focus on the problems, our lives seem full of problems. That's the easy thing. That's what we are wired to do. The good things snatch our focus for a little bit, but our natural tendencies don't let us linger there. Before long, our focus goes back to the problems, and soon that is what we see. And it can seem like that is all we have Problems. Irritations. Obstacles. Threats.
It's impossible to walk into an otherwise clean room and not see the sock lying in the middle of the floor. And you can't gaze over a neatly mowed lawn and not see the weed sprouting in the middle. And the flaws in our co-workers, spouses, family, neighbors, and friends well, they might as well have a Hollywood-sized spotlight shining right on them.
Tying it back to the backstory, I've often thought about what my Depression-era parents would think of the life I have. They would scoff at me complaining about the price of bacon. They would marvel at being able to make free long-distance calls, much less video chats with family anywhere in the world. They would be happy I made it to New England in the fall. And they would shake their heads at how little responsibility I allow my kids to have.
But if they were here now, with all the many blessings of modern life, they too would find it normal after a while. Surely it would take more than a week, but eventually the modern conveniences around them would be taken for granted. And they would begin seeing problems. The almost fully stocked fridge being out of ice cream. The clothes dryer taking a little longer than it used to. The internet being a little slower than they like. Problems that, if they could even dream of them, 100 years ago they would have wished for.
I am not dismissing all of our modern-day problems as insignificant. And I'm not suggesting that we all start overlooking problems. We couldn't if we tried, and it would bring unwanted consequences.
But if we aren't careful about intentionally shifting our focus to the good, soon all we see is problems around us and in each other and that is certain to lead down a road of unhappy consequences.
I know some people who don't struggle with their focus at all. I am happy for them, albeit a little envious, too. But maybe you are like me and need a new perspective, or a reminder to look for the good in your life and the people in it. If so, I hope this story does that for you.
I will always be grateful to have seen the New England autumn in person. It was special. But most of the pictures I took in Maine will exist only on my phone. I will look back at some on occasion, but for many I will just wonder why I bothered taking them. Still, I will cherish the memories of that experience and try to keep them vivid in my mind.
But what I really hope sticks with me is not just the beauty of the trees, but the lesson they reminded me about where to put my focus.
