love the brown leaf days too

16 December, 2008
it made me smile that, whilst waiting for this picture to upload, the accompanying message said 'crunching...'!

it made me smile that, whilst waiting for this picture to upload, the accompanying message said 'crunching...'!

 
This is the picture my girls made with their dad after an afternoon’s leaf collecting. What fascinated me was that each of the leaves we picked up really stood out from the others around them at the time they were chosen – they were something special amongst the duller, browner leaves surrounding them. Yet, when they were all put together in this picture, some acted as the duller background themselves. It made me think about how we live in a world of relativity – how can we truly know happiness if we’ve never felt sad? How can we measure beauty without some implied aesthetic scale? If we lived in a world of infinite resources, fairly shared, would it mean anything to be described as ‘wealthy’?
 
So life is lived in a series of ups and downs, of days that stand out from the others like a glorious sunshine yellow leaf, and of the dull brown leaf days that serve to make that yellow leaf day so radiant. Wouldn’t it be great to always be aware of how our ‘ordinary’ brown-leaf days are part of a huge autumnal picture, our life as a whole, seen from a step backwards? And don’t they just make those other days shine?
 
What colour and texture leaf would your day be today? When was your latest yellow leaf day? Remember it in detail and make yourself smile!