SCATTERED LEAVES AND THOUGHTS

Lately I've been noticing the loveliness of leaves scattered across lawns, as well as, surprisingly, the loveliness of the thoughts that strew themselves across my mind. There’s no orderliness in October’s leaves on lawns, and there’s certainly no neatness or tidiness in the thoughts that tumble down in my mind moment by moment – and yet there’s a strange sort of beauty in both. No one (I hope) would look at a lawn covered with colorful leaves and say it’s a shame the leaves aren’t better organized, and, similarly, I’m not dismayed that my thoughts aren’t more nicely systematized and structured.  Part of the beauty of autumn lies precisely in the unplanned, spur-of-the-moment look of the bright lawns under their temporary layer of leaves, and I find something special in the crazy haphazardness of my thoughts. They settle inside me by the millions, these thoughts from nowhere and everywhere, and they spread across my life like an always-shifting quilt of colors. I could, I suppose, try to shape and classify them, but that would be as foolish as trying to position leaves in piles according to size and shape. Like leaves shifting and scattering as breezes pass by, my thoughts disseminate themselves through my days in harmless and charming ways. I guess I’d rather admire and be mystified by them than try to pigeon-hole and compartmentalize them.