This morning, August 27, I looked across the puddle and noticed something so small I could have easily missed it. Almost everything is still green. The sky is bright blue, the trees are full, and summer has certainly not packed its things and left. But tucked into all that green is the smallest patch of red and orange.
Maybe a dozen leaves have decided to go first.
It is not enough to call the trees changed. You would probably never notice it driving past, and even standing here you have to know where to look. But once I saw those few leaves, I could not stop seeing them. Fall has not arrived, but it has sent a little notice that it is coming.
There is something I love about the seasons beginning this way. We tend to mark change when it becomes undeniable, when the trees are brilliant with color, the leaves cover the ground, or the air finally requires a sweater. But the actual beginning happens much earlier and much more quietly.
Perhaps many changes in life happen that way too.
There is a moment before the thing we eventually recognize, when almost everything still looks exactly as it did yesterday. One small piece has shifted. One thing feels different. A few leaves turn red while the rest of the tree remains green.
Since I began sitting behind the puddle and paying closer attention, I have learned how much happens in these almost invisible transitions. Goslings become geese before I can identify the exact day it happened. Young mallards wander farther from their mother. Familiar visitors disappear and return, the water rises and falls, and creatures change their routines without announcing why.
Now the trees are beginning their turn.
Not enough for autumn. Not yet.
Just enough to remind me that sometimes the first sign of what comes next is only visible because we happened to be looking.
Categories: Puddle Stories, Behind the Puddle
Tags: fall, changing seasons, August, observation, nature, seasonal transitions, noticing, puddle view, Iowa, Behind the Puddle
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