Last week my mother and I drove up into the Sierra Nevada and stopped at a creek lined with aspens, their leaves falling on the water like lucky gold coins.
We passed a wedding party, bridesmaids clutching bouquets with one hand and using the other to keep their sheer purple dresses from flying up in the wind.
Minivans, cars and trucks lined the highway, and people piled out into the meadows with their camera phones to take seasonal family photos.
Once, I might have been snippy about the hordes of tourists flooding Hope Valley, never-you-mind the hypocrisy of being one of them.
But these are pandemic times, wildfire times, and instead I recognized my fellow leaf-peepers as thirsty hummingbirds sipping on the nectar of fall color; exhausted pilgrims lining up to be anointed.
Dusty and ragged after this punishing summer, we Californians treasure our fleeting few weeks of pale yellow foliage. Dreaming of the rain that we hope will soon wet them, we lick the leaves and press them to our hearts.