serendipity or chance

today, i dug out a book on georgia o’keefe to share with my son’s girlfriend. the book was stacked in a pile of art books i keep beside my favorite reading chair. when i picked up the book, these leaves came fluttering out. i, of course, had completely forgotten about them. their bright colors, in contrast to our very gray and hazy landscape right now, was startling. only two months ago, my whole landscape looked like these leaves. how quickly we adjust to each new season.

these leaves, spilling from the pages of the book, onto the floor, would be easy to see as a metaphor for the passing of time: days, months, seasons. if i wanted to, i could convince myself it was more than coincidence that these leaves fell out now, just as the last few days of 2023 fall away. was it serendipity, perhaps? i define serendipity as coincidence with a tad more significance than pure chance. 2023 was not a bad year for me personally, but it was a very bad year for our collective humanity. the heaviness of our communal failings this year does not put me in the mood for finding metaphors. and yet metaphors are one of the most powerful tools we humans have for creating a collective consciousness. metaphors can move the needle.

so these colorful maples, falling, on the last days of 2023, from the pages of a book by a great female artist, who chose to live her life outside conventional norms, was not an accident. it is telling me to look at the female leaders who came before me. they were all rebels. they all had to defy convention in order to create a more just and beautiful world. and it reminds me, i want a seat at their table.

pressed autumn maple leaves