In Which We Notice Things There All Along
I first noticed the mallard couple in our yard during pandemic homeschooling just after the 2020 shut down. The ducks waddled around eating young grass shoots in the wet spots behind the house while we peered through the windows unseen – a living science lesson. I mentioned it to my neighbor in excitement one day. We stood our safe distance apart while he swept up the remaining pieces of asphalt and sand that the plow trucks had deposited at the edge of his yard over the previous winter. He tried to match my enthusiasm with his response “yes, they’ve been coming for years.” It was me who had never noticed them, they had been there all along. I took some photographs of the ducks, but I had to zoom way in and the images were grainy. I had to point out what is in the image to others. The ducks certainly camouflaged well. In those moments, I felt a little less bad that I had never noticed them. But there was proof in the photos now. I could show others that I finally noticed them.
In all my years in New England, I never noticed the parallel between spring and fall leaf colors. And then I heard a story about it on the radio and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed it all along. I don’t mean the pinks and whites and yellows of spring’s flowering trees, although those are beautiful too. It’s the colors in the leaves themselves with their faint reds, yellows, and oranges in the tiny emerging new growth. It is there for a few weeks each spring, a bookend with the fall around the summer months. The leaves slowly fade to bright green over the course of the spring as they grow, and the chlorophyll takes over.
When I left my job after nearly ten years, I always assumed I would stay connected with co-workers. I expected I would run into them on visits to the city, that I’d check in periodically. And I did at times. I made a point to stop by when I was in town, feeling inside like the prodigal daughter returning, but realizing now that it was not more than a friendly hello and brief catch up. It happened enough over a few years that it felt normal, consistent, that I had not been forgotten even though I left. We were not close friends, but they were good colleagues. The kind you appreciate in hindsight but don’t know how to tell. I moved on and I know they moved up, but I pictured them still in their old offices, putting one foot in front of the other and doing good work.
In the rush to escape winter and leave behind the gray dullness of stick season, I had not slowed down enough to see the spring colors in the leaves before it was pointed out to me. Once the hints of spring arrived, I was already mentally in summer. I’d jump to picturing the trees full of deep green leaves. The grass and trees blending in to take over and dominate the landscape by sheer force of volume. Or I’d jump again towards picturing the showy fall colors. The glowing oranges and deep reds giving one last hurrah before fading to brown. It wasn’t until I was reminded to use a patient and present eye that I was able to see the variations in spring.
When I didn’t see the ducks this spring, I feared I had jinxed it or that my eyes had returned to their “too busy to notice” state. Eventually I caught sight of them again, but if not for that first pandemic spring, I don’t know that I would have ever known they were here in our yard each year.
For most of my adult life, I drove through the New England spring lamenting the muted colors and waiting for the bright green of summer. Now when I turn on to our road after the last of the snow is gone, I am struck by the variations in color among the trees. I am tempted to stop with flashers like the leaf peepers of fall to take a picture and show everyone my astute observation skills. But these colors are more subtle than the flashy reds and oranges of fall and I know a photograph won’t capture it. So I file the image away in my brain - something I notice but can’t figure out how to share with others.
Social media passes along good news, but it also passes along sadness. Amidst all the moments of grief of the past year and a half, there are a few that caused me extra pause. The memorial post lamenting the loss of a former classmate and colleague who I’d pictured I’d cross paths with again someday. The messages and posts that a former colleague not much older than me had succumbed to COVID when I’d imagined she’d be there when I stopped in on my next visit. The message letting me know that a former boss had just been moved to hospice after cancer treatment failed and I realized I’d never pass him again on the street. They are part of the memory I have of my old job, the tapestry I’ve woven about what it will look like when I visit next. They’re there in my future brain, but I’ve skipped the present. The present where I left, and they moved on. The present where they are gone. The present where they are not a tapestry just waiting for me, they are someone else’s stories and moments and life. I have spent so much time spent picturing the next time we’ll cross paths instead of connecting in the present, instead of telling them they were good colleagues, instead of telling them they were good people. Instead of finding the words for something I notice but can’t figure out how to share.
The cycle leaves go through - from faint hints of color in spring, to the deep greens of summer, to the flamboyant shades of fall, to the muted grayscale of winter, and then back again to spring - serves as a reminder each season to notice and acknowledge change. There are annual patterns to change like the leaves, but time also marches forward and with it comes changes and joy and losses and growth. The ducks were there even when I didn’t notice them. When I didn’t slow down enough to see them on their terms. They’ll be here a few more weeks, and then I don’t know where they’re off to next. Their fleeting overlap with my life a marker of time and change.
