Letting Go

My childhood memories of November mostly seem to revolve around raking leaves.

I know that in elementary school, November meant raking the leaves in our yard, if only to create the piles that would become leaf forts and leaf cushions for jumping into from whatever height I could scale. The forts were a necessary construction that allowed me an insulated place to spend cool afternoons outdoors and gave me a way to have some quiet time from my sister, hiding out, creating stories, until as darkness fell, my mother would call me in for dinner.

I suppose that it helped that I grew up on what was, in all practical purposes, a double lot, since my grandmother lived directly next door to our house.  And as the case would be, each of our lots contained mature maples and mature elms along with an apple tree, a birch, and a lot of lilacs.  Across the street from us was the largest cottonwood tree in the neighborhood. There was plenty of easy access to leaves.

Through the years I developed a pattern of raking the two front yards into one pile, the two back yards into another pile, and the long side yard of my grandmother's corner lot into a third pile.  I worked out patterns and strategies to get all the leaves into these piles as efficiently as possible.   The challenge for me always seem to land on the timing of when the leaves would drop.  The trees were large enough that I couldn't just wait for them all to drop, but trying to keep each of the yards clear was an ongoing challenge with ever more leaves coming down.

Some years I do remember times when it seemed like they all just dropped at one time. A massive letting go that seemed more like a blizzard.   It made me wonder about why and how trees made the choice to drop their leaves, and later it amazed me to learn that they indeed did choose.   Sure there were cues, like diminishing sunlight hours and dropping temperatures, that trees use to determine that it's time to begin the path to dormancy that will protect them during the winter months. 

But it turns out that there is even more to it.  Stress level can cause a tree to drop leaves earlier than they might wish.  Afterall, keeping their leaves as long as possible would allow them to generate additional food for themselves, but getting caught with trying to support all of your leaves when conditions get harsh is stressful too.  When conditions are good, keeping food production going gives that extra strength for growth that might just not come around again for a while.  Take it when you can get it.

The process of letting go, closing off the pathway to a leaf stem is a tree's final act before settling into a period of dormancy. Choosing to go dormant when conditions are still good for production seems unwise, but it is cautious move that relies on the hope that they have indeed prepared well enough for what's ahead.

I'm not one to let go easily.  I know that about myself.

I am indeed struggling to believe that my period of dormancy ahead will be ok.  I wonder if I have what I need to get through the changes that will come.  I want to try to accomplish just a little bit more.  I worry that I haven't done quite enough.  I feel like a tree that would prefer to just not drop its leaves.  Perhaps that makes me more of a conifer.

Yet even the conifers, take time to rest and have their own periods of dormancy.   And this year, the red pine in my back yard is even going through a bit of a shedding of older needles.  The soft brown carpet forming under the tree is a reminder that what it gives up will have use, warming small animals' beds, returning to soil and adding nutrients to help sustain the tree in the years to come.

I look at all that I have built here at the cafe and know that as I walk away, I must let go. By letting go I hope to provide a base from which more growth may happen for this cafe I have come to love so much.  And as I let go, room for others to step in and begin to love this community and little corner of southwest Minneapolis begins.  As I let go, I can feel some relief from the long hours, long days, long weeks and physical work that has marked these past twenty years.

So why is it so hard to let go?

Some of this seems to result from knowing there are interactions and activities which are indeed the "last" time I'm doing something.  As I recognize these lasts, I can feel the loss and with it, grief.  It isn't actually that often that we get to identify "last" times, although one of these times in my life was the day I needed to say goodbye to my mother as she lay in a hospice room, knowing that she would indeed die before I would be able to return.  It has been her example of letting go - truly, peacefully, letting go - that I will need to turn to as I struggle to do the same.

Yes, that would have been me, as the darkness fell, chasing a few last leaves across the lawn, trying to capture all of them.  And yes, I might be the last one in the building, turning out the lights and straightening out the chairs.  Trying to let go.

 And as I complete this portion of my journey along what I’ve called the Green Path, this letting go will open new paths for me to take that I do hope will cross yours.

Dan