Falling Beauty

My newest favorite thing is to watch the leaves falling. It's so beautiful, the way they just sort of flutter to the ground, and when there's a decent breeze so lots of them all fall together it's pure magic. I watched a neighbor outside raking his leaves as more descended all around him. I couldn't decide if I should be impressed with his work ethic or if I should laugh at that exercise in futility, but either way I sat there mesmerized by it all. (We still haven't touched our leaves. Craig is still waiting for me to cave in and give him my blessing on buying a leaf blower...)

On my mission, one of the major Japanese holidays is the Cherry Blossom Festival. I was lucky enough to be in Hirosaki for it, which has the most famous cherry trees in all of Japan. Apparently they're six hundred years old or something, making them both the oldest and the biggest trees you can find. (Trust me, they put these ones in DC to shame!) All you really do for the festival is pack a picnic lunch and sit under the trees eating while the petals fall all around you and on you. And it's absolutely wonderful. It was also probably the only break we missionaries got, now that I'm thinking about it... Anyway, watching the leaves here makes me think that this is just a clunky, more colorful, autumn version of the cherry blossoms. And it's awfully fun, too, in it's own harvesty sort of way.

How I never noticed the leaves before was sort of a mystery to me, until I realized that I grew up where all the trees are evergreens (yay, Seattle), so not much happened with the leaves changing, then lived in Provo, which has no trees, and then the apartment we had here backed to mostly evergreen trees. No wonder I was so out of the loop! I guess I probably should have been paying more attention last fall, but it was a really busy time for us, between moving and working on Savior of the World. So I'm grateful both to have more time this year around, and to have finally noticed those leaves. They are awfully fun, aren't they?