Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves TURN.” – Elizabeth Lawrence
We recently started our university trips throughout Europe with our youngest child. On a rainy day in Austria, she was walking ahead of me through the cobbled streets of Innsbruck. The mountains were shrouded in grey, the evergreens hiding behind a misty cloak. I remembered I had promised my mother a picture from Austria, as she had spent a magical year studying in Vienna in the 1960s. I called out to Bianca to TURN around so I could capture the moment and send it to my mom. I never took the photo.
She turned, and all at once she was no longer a girl walking ahead of me but a young woman living here on her own, while I was countries away. She was with friends, chattering in a third language and making plans for the weekend. She was comparing exam notes, talking about her favorite professors, and standing up just a little taller than before she turned around. She was glowing, and in that instant, I knew she was imagining it too. Like only children can, she was dreaming with her eyes open, what if I had a little apartment above that square? What if the people at this café knew my name? What if I discovered every corner of this city, the shortcuts and the long ways home? What if I worked in the shop that sells nothing but strudel and they trusted me with the recipe? What if I became fluent enough to dream in German, and it became a part of me?
As I stood frozen in that square, she said, “Mom, come on. Take the photo.” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t interrupt this turning point with the click of a camera. I wanted to hold it, to hold her, for as long as possible. I knew I would send my mother a picture eventually, but this one I preserved differently, tucked into my heart, where generations of mothers would understand the depth of it. Because it was so much bigger than a photo. It was a lifetime in a moment.
It was her TURN.
I hope we have taught our children that life is full of turns: turning the other cheek when kindness is harder than anger, turning over a new leaf when growth calls, turning a day around when it begins in shadows, turning heads not for appearance but for authenticity, turning the tide when courage is required, waiting their turn when patience is the lesson, and meeting the unexpected turns with grace. I hope they know, too, what not to carry: that to turn a blind eye is to miss the chance to help, to turn your back is to perhaps close the door on love, to let sweetness turn sour is to surrender to bitterness.
As the leaves begin to TURN, nature reminds us that every season carries its own quiet wisdom. Fall is a season of turning. Trees TURN golden, days TURN shorter, and the air turns crisp. It is a gentle invitation to TURN inward with awareness, to TURN ordinary moments into presence, to TURN toward change instead of resisting it. And as we are learning again, as if for the very first time, in this square in Innsbruck with our daughter, every TURN carries us closer to becoming the next version of ourselves.
As she disappeared further under the porticoes and umbrellas, I felt the distance stretching between us, each step lighter for her and somehow heavier for me. That is the paradox of these turns: the easier it becomes for them to walk into their lives, the harder it becomes for us to release them into it. In that quiet ache, I remembered one of my favorite lines:
A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary. – Dorothy Canfield Fisher
And in that truth, I understood that this was not only her TURN, but mine as well. To TURN toward letting go. To TURN toward the beauty in the ache. To trust that in every TURN, love does not diminish; it deepens, expands, and carries us both forward.
