Leaf, Meet other Leaf

This was the gorgeous fall day I reveled in a few weeks ago.

 

As I was raking, a little girl came riding up on her scooter and after a quick "HI!" proudly announced, "I'm 4." I tried to smother a giggle at the seemingly out of place exclamation that was my initial reaction. So what if we had never seen each other before, what's to prevent us from forging connections and sharing? That's what the human experience is about, right? She proceeded to inform me that her birthday was coming up and that then she would be 5. I returned with an encouraging, "Oh, cool!" Then she said after she was 5 she would be 6. The simplicity of our conversation made me really happy. Talking to people doesn't have to be hard. Yet I always make it out to be this huge thing. Just as I was really warming up to our conversation, her dad came behind her and bustled her along, apologizing in an embarrassed manner. It made me sad for him. I don't think we should ever be embarrassed by the examples of the children around us. It was an unexpected profundity I did not expect to encounter among the leaves that day.

True connection

Not to make this melodramatic, but I thought about that a lot as I finished my task. We are a lot like the leaves, all tossed together, but very rarely making true contact, soul to soul as it were.

There were a lot of leaves...

There you have it. Beauty and a thought brought to you by autumn.