I have always loved fall. The air feels a little cooler and the world a little bit stiller when the energy of summer dims to meet its quieter sister. The days are shorter, the arms of night stretch from dusk to dawn, and I find myself drinking the sunsets more intentionally as the painting hanging in the sky quickly melts into the horizon.
There is something to be said about this time of the year. When I turned 4, I held onto my mother’s hand as I shuffled into pre-k. A little separation anxiety was traded in for a pink clippy name tag that read “Elena H., Mrs. Norton’s class” next to an outline of a hippo. Silly that I would remember after all these years– memory and I have a peculiar relationship.
A year later came kindergarten: the little lunch trays with strawberry milk and cup oranges, the cardiovascular system obstacle course during gym, the christmas parties with reindeer candy canes and cotton ball snowmen, the glorious treasure chest prize bin. Those were the good days– I wish she had known.
First grade blurred into fifth, sixth into eighth, and before long, my sparkly pulley backpack gave way to a plain blue one that served me faithfully into high school. Like clockwork, every fall opened with a new chapter, definitively marked as “xth grade”. My favorite outfit and backpack filled with an assortment of notebooks and pens laid in anticipation for a new school year, a new life.
March 25, 2021. Confetti exploded on my screen paired with the words, “Congratulations, and welcome to the University of California, Berkeley!” My eyes shot with disbelief as I had just realized the next four years were now planted before my feet. I had been relieved of the shackles of restless ambiguity.
When I was a freshman, they told me to enjoy it as it lasts. And that’s what I told the freshmen when I became a senior. Because just like that, the four years quickly came and gone, and I am yet again at the precipice of a new tide.
This morning, I opened the window to a gentle breeze. The world whispered, “It’s fall again.” But for the first time, I did not have a packed bag and a favorite outfit laid out the night before.
Only once it leaves do you recognize how much you loved. Don’t get me wrong, I do not miss the frantic rush of scheduling classes, or the suffocation of stacked google calendars, or the heart-dropping notification pings when an assignment has been graded. But it was when I helped my younger sister move in for her sophomore year at ucsb that I realized I didn’t miss the chaos of college; I missed the tempo of a life that tasted sweet only for its familiarity.
I remember my first campus tour like it was yesterday. My orientation leader joked that the london plane trees arranged neatly before the Sather Gate were genetically engineered by students back in the day, which is why they had such unappealing, exfoliating bark year-round.
These trees weren’t particularly eye-catching; they weren’t sturdy like the redwoods on northside or towering like the eucalyptus across from the west crescent lawn. But as a tenant on the southside of campus all four years, I trekked across sproul plaza and passed this array of trees before classes every day. And every year, I witnessed the leaves turning yellow-brown to orange-bronze and finally to leathery carcasses that littered the stone floor. And this year, I know they are performing the same ritual 469 miles away.
I’ve never liked change; I like the consistency of routine. As someone with an allegedly performative posture (according to my sister), I live for the backbone of a schedule that my body has found a rhythm to. Yet the very thing that draws me to autumn is the undressing of mother nature that marks the advent of a new season. Change, embodied in a language for all those who are willing to notice.
There is a quiet poetry in how the ember reds, the crisp oranges, and the burnt browns perform a delicate dance in their final descent. Once the tree enters a new season of life, it prunes away the parts of itself that no longer serve the mission of photosynthesis. And the leaves, almost in harmony, oblige with this growth by leaving gracefully. Maybe I, too, am a tree.
I have learned to appreciate change with all of its thorns and growing pains, for it is the only constant in life. But the gift of growth is that it comes threaded with nostalgia. And isn’t that so beautiful? That grief is a privilege, for we can only look back fondly when we have something colorful to remember.
So this year, as the season turns once again, I’m choosing not to fear the shift– I’ll meet it gently. After all, even the trees know when it’s time to let go.