Suddenly, leaves

Recently, I started collecting leaves.

And sometimes I laminate them.

Today, I found a particularly beautiful and unique leaf. It’s pictured above. It has such a special shape, even though you could also easily look at it and think it’s generic. Its shape almost makes it looks like a figure … maybe even one dancing.

I picked this leaf up off the ground to admire it more and realized it was actually quite fragile. Later when I laminated it, I held it up to my glowing light. I noticed it actually had small holes scattered throughout that I hadn’t noticed before, the light coming through like little stars in a galaxy.

Yesterday, I found five brilliant red leaves and similarly laminated them. Red leaves lose their color quickly when they’re exposed to regular air, but laminating them keeps them preserved so their brilliant color remains.

Sometimes it feels cruel to preserve something so ephemerally beautiful…

Taylor Swift recently re-recorded her album from over a decade ago called “Red.” The new version is called “Red (Taylor’s Version).” Taylor wants to own her own music, and this is her way of doing just that.

In the song “Red,” Taylor sings:

Loving him is like trying to change your mind
Once you’re already flying through the free fall
Like the colors in autumn, so bright, just before they lose it all

Losing him was blue like I’d never known
Missing him was dark gray, all alone
Forgetting him was like tryna know somebody you never met
But loving him was red

Loving him was red

Red, blue, and dark gray are the colors Taylor mentions pertaining to her love experience. This was when Taylor was pretty young, as she released the original “Red” when she was in her early 20’s. I wonder how she felt re-recording this song in particular now that she’s in her early 30’s.

I know Taylor was trying to drive home a certain type of love experience with her limited palette, but to me, love is so many more colors. It’s almost infinite. I know certain animals can see more colors than humans, like certain species of birds and also “mantis shrimp.”

One thing I love about leaves is how remarkable they are for being so commonplace. Especially if you find a special one, it can easily be the star of a whole blog post. Or maybe a whole forthcoming film.