Abscission | everything changes
IN THE FALL, as the days get shorter and colder, a deciduous tree (deciduous comes from the Latin for falling) will stop producing chlorophyll in its leaves. This brings about all those beautiful autumn colors—the corals and ochres and ambers, the bright, juicy reds. At the same time, the tree produces abscission cells at the base of the leaf, where it connects to the branch. These cells are designed to break apart, and so release the dying leaf to the ground, where it can decompose and fertilize the soil for next year. Sometimes, a tree that ought to produce these cells fails to do so, maybe because the fall was too warm, or because the cold came on all at once, with no warning. You can spot these trees once you know to go looking for them: all winter, they hold on to their dead, dried up leaves, like so many desiccated fists raised to the air.
We live in cultures where quitting is fraught. First, there’s the powerful and enduring social stigma that associates quitting with failure. We (wrongly) presume that quitting signifies some lack of skill, some incompetence or fuck up. Even when we consciously know that the truth is likely otherwise, those old stories have a habit of sticking around, of lurking in dark corners and tucking themselves into our quietest thoughts. Second, there’s the appalling lack of support, both emotional and financial, around the act of quitting, especially in the States. If your job is eliminated, you’re (in theory, at least) entitled to both sympathy and help getting back on your feet. But if you quit or are (gasp!) terminated? Most of the time, you’re on your own.
