The leaf stares as I sip morning coffee. We're so well acquainted that I could sketch it from memory, an eight-inch tapered oval that a vertical line divides. Angled segments flare from sides.
The leaf glares as I dream it a crawling caterpillar. It suffers three light wind tears so late in summer that it scowls. That matches my mood. It's four days since I've smiled, burdened by the pandemic, policing and politics.
Devoted to democratic ideals during a 32-year government and teaching career, I retired to write, a manuscript already in hand. I delight in proving a thesis while shaping a style as I tackle my interests in essays — knowing that at the end of my days we'll at best have a fragile democracy.
The leaf soothes me most times as I meditate, mesmerized by its soft swaying motions. I marvel at its patient waiting as I come at dawn to the living room corner. A pale blue chair cradles me, with my cup of French Roast, as I focus my eyes on that waif-like leaf, a “common ash,” cellphone research shows; I peer at pictures as if hieroglyphics.
A coin from the Athens Golden Age, shown on cup sides, signifies the precepts of Pericles: we rise by merit not favor, have a duty to serve and make communal decisions — notions that framed my approach with neighbors, colleagues and students in lobby, office or classroom. A social norm fading as folks focus on “building a brand,” it flickers in my thematic writing.
September ushers in the leaf's elder days. It saddens me that a crunchy brown will replace the ripe green then give way to wind. Stranded on sidewalk, camouflaged among others, it will part from me as I mourn. The wind bears no blame. The leaf falls when ready, having done its life's work, a constant through rain, sun or snow, its peaceful presence a balm amidst worldly turmoil.
What I see when I look past the tree pains me.
A maskless face flaunts my Covid fears. How can one leave that home with life or death at stake? “Wear the Mask, Protect Me, Protect You!,” a neighbor's neon-lettered cardboard hall sign screams. My privileged window perch belies the underlying fear of exposure that prompts a visceral malice when an unmasked person approaches outside. I grit my teeth, grumble within, dispel the urge to confront.
Science says to wear the mask at all times to withhold noxious particles even with no one near.
The nation's distorted freedom notion will ruin us, the western “rugged individualism” of discarding masks, bearing guns or oppressing “the other.” No one tells me what to do, some proclaim, even to prevent illness or injury. I mind my own business, I do my own thing, not in my backyard, it's not my fault or my problem.
We drive too fast in large gas-swilling cars, fuel crisis compacts consigned to the past. “Feel alive!” cries a Mazda commercial. “Make the most out of summer!” Ford urges. “Experience the advantage of a bigger world. Experience amazing!” a Lexus spokesperson with a faux English accent implores. SUVs tailgate sparse cars on my shady street. They roar to, then glide through, the stop sign where one struck a friend who five ICU days revived.
I hear baseball on my Walkman to relax at evening as I cook lemon pepper chicken, brown rice and broccoli. John Sterling, still in his eighties “the voice of the Yankees,” is a great raconteur, connecting history, literature and show tunes to sports. He knows the lore and he's witty with “Gardner plants one!” among his legendary home run calls. But between inning spots press me “hurry in” or “grab and go” for what I don't want. “America runs on Dunkin.” Capitalism has us moving too fast. Would we have more compassion for one another if we could somehow slow ourselves down?
“The self and the rest of the universe are not separate entities, but one functioning whole,” a Zen tenet says, but fractious trends — Johnson's Vietnam escalation, Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” Reagan's “Trickle Down Economics” — marred the New Deal's success and the Great Society's progress.
Racism, police violence and whether schools can safely reopen throw shade over the “conscience” paens when John Lewis died. How often can “We Shall Overcome” fill a hall before we accept that social ills will outlive us? An old shoe's comfort attends business as usual. Complacency, fear of uncertain changes and privilege-preserving denials of racism make incremental change cost Herculean effort, and link inspiration with heartbreak.
Lewis, indeed heroic, kept on, but who will succeed him? Could his mighty example help us all walk an activist path? Will this moment's protests merge as coalitions or by November's election be relics? Will the nation's decision affirm democracy or repression?
The leaf leans left as I look through the window.
Have faith, the leaf that shines in summer, falls in autumn and renews itself in spring implores.