Seize the moments that come along

Written by Joe Pisani
Tuesday, 07 September 2010 23:00

On the way to Whitefield, N.H., where Route 116 is bordered by birches that stand along the road like sentinels — their white bark peeling and their delicate leaves fluttering as you drive past — you’ll pass an open pasture, surrounded by a barbed wire fence and a windbreak.

And if you look across the field in early autumn — but only in early autumn — you’ll see a swamp maple in brilliant burgundy that’s always the first tree to change color.

Such an inglorious name for such a glorious tree — the acer rubrum, aka “red maple,” is a common deciduous tree throughout Eastern North America, from Canada to Florida, from Minnesota to New England.

On the border of the meadow, this solitary maple is ablaze and stands out distinctively among green oaks and dark conifers. Rising behind them against a brilliant blue sky is the silhouette of Cherry Mountain, stretching out languidly from its summit Mt. Martha (named after Martha Washington) to Owl’s Head, a smaller peak a mile away.

When I first saw this scene 10 years ago, I pulled off the road, took out my point-and-shoot camera and paused to take a picture that was almost perfect in color, composition and mood.

It had such an emotional appeal that I returned to the spot every year with a more expensive camera — two Canon SLRs to be exact — to recapture the moment. But it was never quite the same.

I either got there too late in the season when most of the leaves had fallen off, or I got there too early when there wasn’t enough color, or I got there when there wasn’t enough contrast between the sky, the distant mountain and the trees. Something was always not quite right.

In 10 years of trying to relive the experience, I never succeeded no matter how I tired, and I tried hard.

All the books about landscape photography give this emphatic advice: If you see a scene that moves you, stop and take the picture because you will never find it the same again.

In many ways, that philosophy is a metaphor for life. Seize the moment. Opportunities that serendipitously present themselves seldom return, and if they do, they’re never the same.

That doesn’t mean we should be saddled with regrets about the past or lost opportunities (like the guy or girl who got away or the investment you never made), but it does mean we should always be open to the possibility of joy and love and laughter intruding in our humdrum lives. And we should seize them because they’re the raw material of memories that sustain us through the dark hours.

As the author C.S. Lewis said, when you’re surprised by joy, something wonderful is at work in your life.

So stop and savor that joy because the memory will last forever, and always be vigilant because beauty can come your way suddenly and unexpectedly like a solitary swamp maple ablaze with color along a country highway.

Joe Pisani can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .