Painful Fall

One thing I have come to realize about myself latley is how awfully perfectionistic I am. I adore the picturesque and spend far too much of my life striving for the ideal. One of the interesting things about Oxford is how incredibly idyllic it is, especially now that autumn has arrived. There have been several times in the past few weeks that I have found myself in udder awe of the surroundings in which I find myself. I was walking back from a run in the park today, the light was shifting as the sun passed between the clouds and trees. Undisturbed houses rested beneath the layer of ivy that now makes itself at home there and a strange sound filled the air. It wasn't the dull roar of the traffic on Banbury, the quiet tread of my tennis shoes or the murmur of students walking back from Meticulation. The soft rustling of papers, the sound of moving branches and fallings leaves filled the air. Though the sound of a single leaf falling to the ground may go unnoticed, the concert of gently swaying branches and crinkle of color touching down is something else entirely, like a soft lullaby under the cover of clouds.

Have you ever experienced moments like that? Where the sun sets just right over a hilltop or the you lose your breath at the sight of the waves crashing against the cold grey stone of ancient cliffs? The same feeling can be inspired by something as deceptively simple as the color of the berries when the sun catches them during my walk home down Crick Road. It is then that I am shrouded with an ache that I only sense at the sight of true beauty. I think that if I lived in an utterly beautiful world I may not be able to stand it, for the ache would entirely consume and overcome me. This must be what Eden felt like. And yet I do not think that a perfect world, a world that is always and at all times filled with this kind of beauty, would cause pain, for I believe that the ache I sense at the sight of beauty is not due entirely to the beauty itself, but to the longings it stirs within me, the longing to live in the perfect world that my heart and soul were created for.

I do not think I have experienced anything as truly beautiful as the season of fall. It is the most magnificent display of death I have yet beheld. One of the greatest life-truths I have been taught comes from the autumn trees themselves. Their leaves, so full of vibrant green life, do not truly change color come summer's end. The vibrant reds, bright yellows, oranges, golds and deep browns have always been there. But it is in death, in the draining of the life-sustaining green chlorophyll, that they come through. Oh to go through such a transformation myself, to learn how to die to all that consumes me, the self-sustaining tendencies that hide the colors within. And so I hope, wish and pray for death. I know no greater way to become truly alive.