Magical and Not-So-Magical
Whenever I travel during the winter, I love seeing the few final papery leaves hanging onto the White Oaks along the interstate. It’s magical. Trust me. I can’t capture it here. If I could, it wouldn’t be magical, right?
I tried to capture it along I-40 East with this photo when we were stuck in construction traffic yesterday on our way from Birmingham to Asheville for Brady’s basketball games tonight and tomorrow.
But this tree (middle/right in the image) has too many leaves. And it’s a little too close to the street. I prefer when the Magical Winter White Oaks With Just a Few Leaves Hanging On For Dear Life are deeper, further away from the road.
I took a photo of this one in a wooded area near our hotel. It has the correct number of leaves.
But it’s not as magical when you aren’t driving 75 mph along a stretch of interstate between Birmingham and Chattanooga with dozens of Magical Winter White Oaks With Just a Few Leaves Hanging On For Dear Life sprinkled about with the sunlight and the quick glimpses making you wonder again and again, “What color is that? Pink-ish brown-ish peach-ish? What kind of tree is that?”
(I know it’s a White Oak because my friend Holly Carlisile told me. I should’ve been able to identify this tree, but I couldn’t because my brain doesn’t retain these things.)
And here’s a pile of fallen leaves, mostly White Oak, on the ground near our hotel, and they don’t seem very magical at all like this. In a pile. No longer hanging on for dear life. But maybe they are still magical here in this huge pile of fallen leaves. Maybe it’s just a different kind of magic.
A Question for You: What ordinary magic have you noticed recently?
Charlotte Donlon helps her readers and clients notice how they belong to themselves, others, God, and the world. Charlotte is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers™. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. She’s currently writing her next book, Spiritual Direction for Writers, which will be published by Eerdmans in 2024.