"It rained last night, did you hear?" the son said the first thing in the morning as he crept groggily downstairs.
I confessed I hadn't. It had been a late night - one fraught with beeping alarms, low-battery carbon monoxide filters, very cold temperatures, and a spate of international phone calls. I remember peeking out at the full-ish moon before finally collapsing into a warm bed, but not much else. In fact when the alarm went off in the morning, I was in the midst of a strange and confusing dream in which somebody was giving me a recipe. I can't remember the details, but I also remember my first thought being - what a strange recipe!
Luckily I shook all memories of frog chutneys and slime pickles aside and made for the open air. The air was fresh - the Earth beautiful after the rains, and I was not going to miss it.
I was rewarded with brilliant cloudy skies, rain-drop topped leaves, and quiet birds shaking their wings and beaks throughout.
I stopped to marvel at the casual beauty that lay there in front of me - the lake not realizing the perfect reflection it provided to the mountains in the distance, the fall trees closer by, and the still groggy white heron on the opposite shore. All just there for anyone wanting to see it. Sleepy, dewy, cloudy, misty.
I stood there trying to remember the chemical names that were responsible for the brilliance of the colours reflected before me: carotenids, anthocyanins and tannins. I wondered at the wisdom of these trees: realizing that it was time to stop photosynthesis and let the tannins and cyanins or whatever take over without any fanfare, and producing the most breath-taking show for the world to revel in.
🍁Carotenids : the pigments for the orange and yellow colors
🍁Anthocyanins: the pigments that are responsible for the purples and reds.
🍁Tannins: responsible for the brown color.
Almost instinctively, I looked around and found myself alone. Alone in a bustling suburban area - the only one who took a quick detour and stopped to admire the lake on my way from somewhere to somewhere. It felt nice. Special. Like I had won a million bucks.
November is already on its way out - 2023 is already on its way out. The trees have put their show on, on time. I gave myself a little scolding: My Christmas tree was not up yet. "But I did have some beautiful poinsetta plants beaming their reds at me in the morning, that was something! " I said to myself heading to a small park bench, and there: I found a million bucks.
I left it there for the next lucky person to find, and went on my way, a smile playing on my lips.
Who said the universe did not have a sense of humor?
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