The Leaf

 When I was a boy in Michigan, one summer afternoon I was lying on my back in a field staring up at a large tree. It was one of those cloudless, windless days, hot and still, and I was lost in my day dreams. 

After a while, I realized that I had been staring at a single leaf that for no apparent reason was turning on its stem. As far as I could see, this leaf was identical to all the other leaves on that tree, but it was the only one moving.

I watched it for a while, utterly perplexed.

When I mentioned this incident to friends, one suggested maybe an insect or other small creature had caused the motion. Another suggested that perhaps the stem was weakened by disease and the leaf was preparing to fall.

But nobody knew for sure.

Over the sixty years since that afternoon, I’ve sometimes thought about that leaf when I encounter people who differentiate themselves by standing out from the crowd. It is an aspect of being a journalist that when I meet such people I seek explanations. 

In that context, returning to that day in Michigan, one leaf turning might be a story. Many leaves holding in place most often is not.

The problem with this set of assumptions is that by focusing on the exception to the rule, we may give the impression that the rule is no longer in order. An example of this is crime reporting. Covering one shocking crime, through a megaphone, can create the illusion that an entire city is “awash in crime” when the fact is the opposite is true. 

In fact, the horrific crime we are telling you about was actually just an anomaly, an outlier event. That is what made it a big story.

***

Of course, there is an entirely different way to tell that story. The solitary leaf I saw may have been ahead of its time — portending a climate disaster to come when all the other leaves remained quiet, steady in place, doing what they were expected to do.

In this version, the swinging leaf was a whistleblower, a ‘canary in the coal mine,’ an indicator of bigger problems.

Enter the investigative reporter, who picks up on the signal and spots a pattern that may provide an explanation for the turning leaf. After observing hundreds of trees, with many thousands of leaves, and interviewing numerous scientists, none of whom can say for sure, the reporter writes a more nuanced story based on the data.

In this new story, we learn that there are many such single leaves on many trees turning slowly on windless days where no one is there to see. But it is also possible that if no one saw them that it didn’t really happen. (Quantum physics.) Then again, perhaps there is a new disease affecting our trees that we need to address if we are to save the forest.

Meanwhile, the people reading this nuanced, carefully documented story are still thinking about that one leaf, turning without any known reason on a windless day. Just like the storyteller, perhaps they can’t see the tree for the leaves.

To say nothing of the forest.

(An earlier version of this essay appeared last April.)

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