It’s getting chilly in Western North Carolina. Leaves have all changed from Gold, Yellow, Red and now brown as the trees take back the nutrients from the foliage and return them to their roots. The colors this year have been spectacular. The Blue Ridge Parkway has been packed with viewers and photographers, trying to capture what it feels like in a photograph or just in a memory.

The leaves are sparse, now, and the trees are nearly bare. I was in a bar last evening, conversing with visitors. Every weekend brings strangers up to fish, enjoy the views, maybe spend a romantic evening around a fire. I feel very fortunate to live here.

I recently carved a terrace out of my hillside. My house sits on the only flat part of my property. The rest is very steep. I am in the process of preparing to plant on that hillside next spring, nothing fantastic like a farm but produce and some other plants that I enjoy. There are patches of blackberry on the hillside and I am taking steps to encourage them. The first terrace that I carved out, however, is purely recreational. I found a spot on the hillside that was already a narrow terrace, probably from the travel of horses and cows, or maybe elk once upon a time. I widened that spot for a fire ring and few chairs, planted some of the larger stones that I uncovered into the hillside as steps leading up to the spot to make it easier. It’s a beautiful spot, near the shade of old walnut trees. I often walk up there with afternoon tea. The house came with a long list of renovation requirements that keep me busy, but I promised myself that I would balance all the hard inside work with outside work. Finish a large project, such as sanding and sealing old wooden floors, then turn my attention outside to the land surrounding me.

I sat watching the fish in the Tuck River that runs through downtown. The music was good, the conversation with strangers about the same as it always is. They are visiting and love it up here. It’s nice to talk to strangers, they always have the same questions; How is this restaurant or that coffee shop or where is this or that. I feel like a local guide. The sun went down, the people came and went, and I decided that what I wanted to do most is to sit on my terrace and consecrate my fire ring, so I headed home.

The firewood was well seasoned, so it caught easily and burned without much care. The stars came out. The sky was all but clear and there are few lights in my neck of the woods. Folks up here like the stars and welcome the dark. For those that spend too much time in the city, you can see by starlight. It’s a sad thing to live somewhere that they are hidden by all the city lights. If I am honest, that’s part of the reason for my relocation from the City of Sunshine to the mountains. I missed the stars and the quiet.

My attention moved back and forth from the fire to the night sky. The view of the stars has widened substantially with the ungowning of the trees. Looking up at the sky through one of the great walnut trees I was fascinated by the shape and form of the branches. Set against the night sky, instead of frailty they reveal strength. Imagine that every year, in preparation for winter, mother nature came to you and said that she required something back in exchange for the growing season. She tells you to drop all your clothes and remain standing in your spot for the coming winter, the cold and snow. Does a tree think about this? Does it register as it would for us? We shiver at the thought of the coming cold. We lay in wood for the stove, or call the gas company to fill up the propane tank. The tree, however, is literally rooted to it’s spot. It complies without complaint or negotiation. The transformation begins. I noticed it first among the dogwood trees on my property, turning deep red, the color of dried blood, and sprouting berries that the birds love.

Staring up through the walnut tree I have a sensation that the tree, having dropped all of it’s leaves, allows me the privilege of seeing more of the sky. I don’t talk tree, so I can’t say that the tree is unaware of my presence. The branches, twisted and curving, show it’s true character. The strength. The resilience. The years of growth and witness. It must be fifty or sixty years old, of not older. This all seems so permanent. It’s hard to imagine that someday this tree will succumb to the inevitable, become weaker, then frail, then disease-ridden and, finally, like all of us, this majestic creature will return to the earth completely.

I stare back at the fire and the hypnotic flames and changing patterns of light keep my attention. Looking at the trees, then back at the fire where remnants of some other tree are busily transforming themselves into gasses and ash it reminds me that everything is temporary. The firewood in my fire ring was a large poplar tree not long ago. My guess is that it became a threat to someone’s property, or perhaps when it succumbed to the inevitable it fell across a road or a trail and required removal, and here are the remnants being rendered by fire into carbon and other things so necessary for life.

Perhaps that is why we like to stare into a fire, to be reminded of the inevitability, of impermanence. Sitting by a fire has some kind of mysterious, rejuvenating effect on a person. As I sat there and contemplated the shifting flames I began to feel like the big walnut tree. Healthy, strong, vital. The fire reminds me that this is only a temporary state. One day my body, too, must return to the earth, to become stardust once again in some future cataclysm that spreads debris from Earth back out into the universe. Until such time I am fortunate. I have family, friends, children. I occupy this beautiful spot on a mountainside in what I consider to be one of the most magical places on Earth. the Great Smoky Mountains were created some 200 to 300 million years ago. How many walnut trees have sprung up, towered, then toppled here. How many people have come and gone. Spring water is everywhere up here so it stands to reason that people have been coming and going for as long as there have been human beings.

The land that I live on has a title, and the law says that it belongs to me. Does it really? It was here many millions of years before me, it will most likely be here for many millions of years after me. For this brief moment in time I am fortunate that I get to live on this hillside, to call it my home, to drink from the springs. I will plant vegetables, divert the flow of spring water to keep them healthy, but in the end, I will also return to it to become, at some point, something else.

Enjoy the time you have on this earth. Take comfort in the knowledge that, no matter what you do, you will eventually leave it, or, at least, cease to exist as you know it and then your body will be returned to it. The parts that made you will become parts of other things. When you look up at a tree and admire it’s majesty, think about those that have come and gone before you. A small part of every person that ever walked on the ground under that tree is in there, somewhere. It’s a wonderful thought that some day I will be a part, if only a tiny part, of the crimson and golden display. I would like to think that if I take very good care of this land, if I treat it with respect and love that someday, long after I am gone, there will be a fleeting moment, an impression if nothing else, in which a fluttering leaf or a majestic oak tree has a memory of me…even if it’s just an instant. This brings me great comfort.