An Ode to Autumn!

The first thing I do when I see trees in late August or early September is to scan the whole tree and see if the leaves have started to yellow. I don’t know where it came from but for as long as I can remember, I have always been fascinated by how steadily autumn consumes the lush green leaves until it turns yellow and golden and falls to the ground.

I was once walking around the town having sent a letter to my dad and happened to pass by the most loved park of the town. A certain species of oak and cherry trees grew plentiful in and outside this park. I wasn’t my observant self that day as I was consumed in thoughts and walking about slowly when a gust of wind rustled the trees and an oak leaf with a yellowish tint fell on my feet. I looked up and smiled, it was time to embrace an old friend.

Autumn had somehow crept back into the town. She had been away for 8 months. She ran to me and I embraced her. The air was crisp and the night clear. She tugged into my sweatshirt and we walked. We didn’t talk but knew how much we had missed each other.

We were a thing.

The most beautiful memories I have are seldom about her but she was always there, making the moments more beautiful. She had always been cold but her heart was always warm and homely. She was one of the few cold people I was helplessly in love with.

I woke up the next morning and she was in my bed. I walked out the door and looked at the sky.

She came out, embraced me from behind, and whispered, “I’m here to stay”

.....

“At least for some weeks.”

"I know,"

Why wouldn’t I know!

Autumn, to me, has always been associated with nostalgia. The season is enigmatic in itself that it is the cold of autumn that endears you to its warmth. Young autumn, old and brown comes in to replace the long hot days of summer.

This season is often heralded by the high-pitched calls of the white-eyed orientals and pipits that come in flock, nibbling away the wild pears that autumn provides in plentiful. The days start to get shorter and colder while the sky is often painted orange during sunset by the sun working on the sorrowful clouds waiting to fall down as cold November rains.

Mornings are always beautiful; the landscape hazy and misty with the early sunbeams ethereal against anything that it shines on. The sun gives its last splash of ample golden sunrays and the trees often look as if Midas had touched them with his cursed hand, turning them all to gold. Leaves of the trees begin to leave their branches in numbers and the fallen leaves often make a beautiful mess of things, rustling and blowing at every gust of chilly wind.

The air has something crisp and tangy about it, often tingling your nose and your sinusitis. A warm coat or a sweater becomes almost indispensable and quiet evening talks over hot coffee and misty breaths go on to become some of the best memories we would cherish in life.

Autumn is a season that makes people alive and feel life altogether, all at once. And, slowly, it often shies away to give way to winter, leaving no great legacy but with the lingering hope that it will be back and life will go on.

I'll leave you with another excerpt of autumn I once wrote for a story that I never finished.

It was in October when I finally moved to the new place. It was a welcoming sight. Our family often visited the place while I was young. Those days, I never knew how beautiful the place was.

The house was just beside a lake surrounded by hillocks of oak and pine trees. The hills would slope down into the lake and the reflection of the water made it look as if the hills actually continued to go underwater with all their vegetation.

During the first two weeks, I was taking in everything the place had to offer. I was sleeping well and felt energised. Morning was one of the best parts of the day. The mist would slowly rise from the water and disappear into the woods when the sun rose. It was enchanting and surreal; as if the whole forest was under a spell of a witch that liked to cook her magic potion out in the woods. I would spend the day exploring the forest. Come evening I would be sitting by the porch drinking coffee or wine, writing about the day. The lake reflecting the golden crackling autumn sunset and the yellow oak trees often stopped me from writing. I would fold my laptop and just look in awe at the grand sunset feeling as if I was living inside the most beautiful painting of autumn.