It Just Hits You In The Face

Touch your face…

Start with your bottom lip.

Now the outer edge of your eye socket.

And that spot riiiight below your nose, just above your mouth.

Now try somewhere that your hairline ends and your forehead begins. (Even if your hairline ended years ago, just… work from memory here… )

I bet in each case you used one finger, didn’t you?

So, let’s try it again, only use more fingers. Maybe even from both hands – heck use palms, fingers, knuckles, elbows, whatever works. (Did anyone happen to notice and ask what the heck you’re doing?)

Your face is full of nerves. It’s sensitive to touch – even sensitive to anything headed toward it. When something is coming at your face, you duck and dodge, turn away and cover it up. Because who wants to be hit in the face?

And yet, you’ll gladly let that same sensitive face invite certain impacts…

Breezy springtime gusts and luke warm summer winds… They seem to invite you to press your face against the flow of their intentions. The gentle collisions of bubbly lips on a baby gobsmacking you with copious drool. That refreshing blast of water as your dive in head first into the lake. Swells of heat dancing off of a bonfire on a chilly starlit evening. It just hits you – all over your face.

How often in these same moments do we close our eyes? Maybe to focus our senses on the way the wind sweeps around us. Or maybe to shield them from the heat, or from the awkward blurriness of the realm below the waves. Or just to soften that hit to the head.

Our eyes are not only a part of our face, they give it a focal point of identity. They’re especially tender to the touch and, like other senses, capture the deeper feelings of experience. Feelings that last across the years and return in memories and stories.

And so it was, around October of 1997 that mom and dad, along with my middle brother, came to visit when we lived in Maine. They wanted to see the autumn colors of New England and we gladly gave them a fairly grand tour. Having lived so long in Plymouth, Michigan, none of us were strangers to fantastic fall foliage.

As we marveled at the explosion of hues around Bangor and Holden, dad spontaneously characterized the way the colors felt, in a way I hadn’t heard him say before…

“All that color. It just hits you in the face.”

More than a few times during their visit he said that – each time with a measured sense of awe.

It wasn’t just about the colors.
It wasn’t just about the light.
It wasn’t even just about the scenic rolling landscape.

It was about what it made him feel and how he responded.

Like those elusive sunny breezes and the cool watery splashes, he felt all he saw as if it ‘hit him in the face.’

And here we are, beyond the middle of autumn. Those of us in the south have a few lingering colors flapping in the breeze while the once whispering leaves of the north woods have fallen silent. The lowering sun bids the trees to doze into dormancy, releasing the garb they once bore. Nourishing elements that kept them green are kept within, allowing the leaves to say farewell with color.

And it just hits you in the face.

We feel it deeply, memorably, so much so that we look forward to a repeat performance like kids coming home from a breathtaking fireworks display.

So why is it we can look at this change with such favor, even expectancy when what is playing out before our eyes is tinged with sadness? From beautiful blossoms to boastful shade to breathtaking hues, the leaves that defined the tree wither and fade to nothing. They weren’t just a part the tree, they gave it a focal point of identity… until they didn’t.

Because the leaves are not the tree.

None of this is to diminish our losses or dismiss our deeper hurts as transient. Those experiences are beyond the scope of mere change, bringing with them their own kind of weather and topography.

In contrast, all the ineluctable changes in our lives are nothing to be ducked or dodged or turned away from. Yet, how often in the midst of change do we close our eyes?

Maybe it’s to focus our senses on what we think we can control.
Or maybe to shield them from the awkward blur of tears.
Or just to avoid a direct hit to the heart.

Some of those changes hit us in the face, leaving a bump or a bruise.
Others hit us in the face with the color of love and the warmth of connection. It’s not about what we see or experience…

It’s about what it makes us feel …and how we respond.

…like my dad, who couldn’t help himself and just blurted out what he felt with such succinct honesty that’s unforgettable. It wasn’t expected, but it was simple, real, and right.

Every season of the year offers us a meaningful way to witness change, to study and dance with it, to learn something new each time we whirl around the sun for another go. As those seasons enter and leave the dance floor of our story, we can see them for what they are, quiet partners who take us along, perhaps hoping at some level we’ll grasp the story they want us to know.

The snows are not the winter.
The blossoms are not the spring.
The song birds are not the summer.
The foliage is not the autumn.
The tree is not the leaves.
The changes aren’t you.

You are you.

And in each season of the year – and of life itself, there is something more to learn in order to become more of who you need to be. And sometimes, the lesson is as simple as this…

Get yourself away from where you’ve been… go for that ride.
Take in all those colors of change.
Let your face be sensitive to the way those changes touch you.

And just say what you feel.

Because what you just have to say, as simple, real and right as it is, may echo back seasons upon seasons later, resonating with the deeper feelings of your loved ones. And it’ll just…

…well, you know.

In honor of my dad’s memory, Billy F. Cranford, who would’ve been 88 years young today.

This is a slideshow of autumn 2021, composed of pictures sent by friends (plus a few of my own) taken across the country. Music by Mirkobornoi (via Pixabay).

Best viewed full screen (click the four little arrows before the Vimeo logo in the lower right).