Monday, December 1--The Strangeness of Fall

Fall, and the whole leaf-changing experience, are far different here than what I expected. Since the weather in Japan is quite similar to that of the Washington, D.C. area, I expected to see a blaze of fall colors on the hillsides beginning in mid- to late-October, just like at home. I guess I didn’t take into account the different flora, but even the familiar trees, like the Japanese maple, are on a different schedule here. A few trees turned golden and dropped their leaves last month. The maples are just now starting to turn, though, as are the ginkgos. There is a really strange tree behind our house…a few random leaves have turned yellow and dropped off, but the rest of the tree appears to be in full summer foliage. I guess there are a lot more types of evergreens in Japan than I’ve encountered anywhere else.

I swear there are leaf elves that come out at night to sweep up the fallen leaves. When you walk around, you will rarely see a leaf on the ground. I will occasionally see a neighbor out cleaning off her driveway, but who is clearing all the leaves off of the streets and out of the parks? When Jim and I drove out of the neighborhood early Saturday morning, there were scores of bags of leaves piled along the sides of the road—bags that were not there the night before. I’m telling you—elves. Part of me expects to look up one day and see one clinging to the trunk of a tree, reaching out to snatch the falling leaves out of mid-air before they even have a chance to hit the ground.