Color. Bits and pieces of color, their edges blurred by the
speed at which I passed them. That’s the first thing I started to notice, once
I’d settled into our bike ride.
You can’t pay attention to that at first: not until you’ve found
a rhythm for the pumping legs, for the breathing that turns to panting by the
second or third slope. Not until you’ve managed to get a grip on the nerves
heightened by adrenaline to almost-fear.
But after that… after that, you start to notice other things. Like the small, teardrop leaves smeared into the mud of the trail, so bright red they’re almost glowing. I think they would have spelled something, some mystery of the fall, if I had slowed enough to really look. If I had stopped to understand the meaning behind the brilliant contrast.
But I was past them before I really saw them, flying down the narrow, twisting trail. Here the path went up along the edge of a bank, and then it squeezed between two trees so close together my handlebars scraped some of their bark away, now it whipped down and around a hill.
And then I was reminded again of the ruby leaves on the trail behind me, because now I was rushing though a different kind of treasure. Here, the woods were growing up out of a bed of ferns that, last time I saw them, were the shade of green only growing things can be. But now, days into October, they were dying in a haze of gold. Not yellow-gold like aspens in the fall, and not brown-gold like dead, crunching leaves, but gold-gold. Gold like a wedding band. One that’s been worn a while and doesn’t gleam like it used to, but is all the more beautiful for its dimmed surface.
I almost braked. I almost pushed my bike aside, off the trail, and crouched down in the ferns. I wanted them to be all around me because I knew that if they were, the steadiness of their color would crumble under my cautious examination, and I would find a million more shades in every fringed leaf.
But before I could curl my fingers over the brake handle and back toward me, my tires skidded sideways on a wet, slippery root, shattering the gold vision like glass and forcing my attention back to staying upright on my bike. When I looked again, we were past. But for the rest of that ride, I saw color.
Green in the slippery moss on the dark logs I jolted over.
White, in the wispy threads of a spider’s web, spun in the crack of a tree tilted across the trail.
Blue, in bits of the sky glimpsed on the way up out of a ravine.
Orange in bright maple leaves, glowing like stained glass, lit by the day’s late sun.
And then it wasn’t just color I noticed. I wasn’t just seeing: I was soaking up more sound than just my own breathing, more than just the click and catch of shifting gears. I heard the steady rush of traffic whispering insistently on the other side of the fence, hidden from sight but so close to the tangled trees through which we rode. I listened for the crackle of underbrush that came when I startled a squirrel crouching too close to the path. And I smelled the rich, bittersweet smell of autumn: the decay of wet leaves, and the ripeness of a season of scattering out and gathering in.
We crossed a creek after that, and for a while I was caught
up in the strain and whoosh of short, steep climbs and dips. But though I was
focused on the ride, the sights and smells and sounds of the brilliant fall
world around me washed over me in a delightful blur. I couldn’t tell you
exactly what the mottled yellow oak leaves looked like, or how the wet,
crumbling tree fallen along the trail smelled, or what the shrill call sounding
in the distance was… but I was wonderfully aware of the beauty of the world I
was in. The thrill of the difficult trail heightened my senses so I could
notice these things, and it kept them precious by the haste with which it
propelled me past them.
Has there ever been a fall like this before? Have those trees ever shuddered with that exact shade of red? And when was the last time the earth breathed out such an alluring autumn breath? The mix of sounds from people and nature soak the world’s ears in a harmony that, until now, this very moment, has been unheard. On this one adventure in this one afternoon of this one fall, I have been blessed. I have been blessed by the sight of this particular kind of vibrant grace, by the sound of this single note of quiet joy. I have been given the chance to breathe in the offerings of a kind of passing beauty that will never come again. And it makes me wonder, then, about the countless other graces and joys and beauties that are bursting to life in tiny explosions all around me. I only pray that I would somehow be made aware of them the way a bike ride has tuned me in to the glory of this fall afternoon.
