Sandi (the dog) and I took the long way home from our delivery last week. Our deviant behavior was rewarded with a show-stopping autumn color display along a deserted foggy Blue Ridge Parkway. Luckily it was deserted, because I kept stopping in the middle of the road to exclaim, “Sandi! Look at that!” and take yet another picture. Do dogs see color? Because Sandi seemed unimpressed. But I didn’t let that curb my enthusiasm. I know it’s noticing season, even if she doesn’t.
Autumn leaves are nature’s way of tripping us out of our chronic torpor. Fall is like a toddler stomping their feet and screaming “look at me! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!” We can’t help but notice. And noticing does not go un-rewarded. Colors crawl slowly down the mountain like waking on a lazy Sunday, tiptoeing into our beds before jumping up and down yelling “wake up!”
And so autumn becomes the noticing season. You can tell by the sudden appearance of weekend traffic jams in Wilkesboro-people are noticing. Seasonal changes seem designed to make us pay attention. The first appearance of green in the spring after the greys of winter, the fall leaves after we’ve become immune to green in the long-winded summers, all these shifts, year after year, stop us and force us to look up to pay attention to the beauty around us.
