Fail Foliage

Every October, millions of gassy-eyed city folk flee their concrete surroundings in pursuit of deeper meaning and deeper colors. They tend to find it among the bucolic environs of the Hudson Valley and New England. These leaf peeping Toms can’t get their foliage fix in the shadows of towering skyscrapers. The palpable sense of seasonal dread coupled with a constant aroma of industrial waste makes appreciating nature an impossible task in most American metropolises. 

So they pack up and go. Filling the roof racks of their rental cars with binoculars and blankets and their backseat with Kombucha coolers and pickled vegetables. They are praying for momentary respites from the action, giving themselves a chance to catch their breath. Summer beat them into submission once again. This is their saving grace. What’s the problem? 

The pastime of peeping glorifies the worst impulses of Mother Nature. What exactly are we celebrating? Does anyone dare to put down the melted gruyere and wine opener to examine it more closely? These interstate interlopers trek on, traipsing through the periphery of the forest to admire the rich hues of oak and maple. They’re not alone either. Practically everyone they know engages in some form of pornographic autumnal fetishization.  

Leaves are colorful cowards – not the foxhole types who will have your bark through thick branches and thin needles. These chlorophonies fall right when we need them most – wintertime. It must be nice to depart when the going gets tough. Either for Florida or the forest floor. The resulting emotion is loneliness and despair.

This is the part of their life cycle we admire. The aimless drift of gravity. The lazy dive of an organism out of ideas. But it’s pretty, you say. Is winter different from the rest of us, immune to craving additional green? And yet, the trees we ceremonially slaughter each December are verdant conifers. The blue-collar members of the natural world, who go about their business absent change or complaint. We reward them by slicing through their trunks, making them idols of a two-week worship, before they too, end up curbside, wallowing in the gutter with the winos, bottle caps and sewer rats. 

Leaves fall without honor or dignity. They entice us with their rainbow of personalities, convincing people to ignore their callous abandonment of simple aesthetics and good sense. Think of all the scenic routes that are suddenly barren come November. Who sticks up for them? Other than the slow drip of literal sap. And when we could really use their help, what do they do? 

They leave.