A leaf does not fall in protest—
It lets go because it knows.
There is beauty in the fall, too.
There’s a tree outside my window.
It’s nothing special, really. Not the kind that gets written into poems or framed by tourists’ cameras. It’s just… a tree. Slightly crooked, leaning a bit more to the left than symmetry would prefer. Some years, it blooms early. Others, late. The bark has split near its base, and a single, persistent crow seems to claim it as home. I don’t even know its name.
But I know it better now.
When I was younger, I passed that tree without thought. I was always late for something—trains, deadlines, life. I moved through spring like it was a green blur on the way to something more important. Summer was heat, noise, and distraction. Autumn arrived like an afterthought, a reminder to buy warmer socks. Winter was a season to be endured, not felt.
I thought awareness was for people with time. For the elderly. For the poets and the wanderers and the kind of people who lit candles in the middle of the day.
But time is a strange teacher. It gives you answers before you even understand the question.
These days, I move slower.
Not because I’m weak. But because I finally understand the value of the walk.
I find myself watching shadows stretch across the sidewalk like silent stories. I hear the wind rustle through the branches with the same tone as an old friend beginning a familiar tale. I look up more often—not to seek anything specific, but just to remember that the sky is always there, changing, like me.
I notice how autumn doesn’t arrive in a single moment. It sneaks in. One leaf, then another. A whisper of cool air against the skin. A different smell in the evening. A melancholy you can’t quite explain. Wabi-sabi tells us that there’s a beauty in this imperfection, this slow decay. It’s the art of noticing the cracks without rushing to fix them. Of holding something broken and saying, “You are still worth holding.”
When I was young, I thought becoming was everything. Now, I see that unbecoming holds its own grace.
I don’t miss the speed. I don’t miss the noise. I miss people sometimes, sure. But mostly, I miss the version of myself who thought happiness was a finish line. Who didn’t know that peace isn’t something you win. It’s something you slow down enough to feel.
In this season—the one after spring, the one where the green fades into gold—I am learning to be okay with not having all the answers. I’m learning that solitude isn’t the same as loneliness. That presence doesn’t need a reason. That this moment, right now, is enough.
Lessons from the Season After Spring
- Youth sprints; age strolls—and the stroll sees more.
- Spring is the dream, but autumn is the understanding.
- Time is not your enemy. Your resistance to it is.
- You don’t have to bloom every season. Falling is also natural.
- The tree outside your window is trying to tell you something. Listen.
I still don’t know the tree’s name.
But I do know the way its leaves shimmer in late October sun. I know the rhythm of its shadow at noon. I know how it holds snow in silence and how, even in winter, it doesn’t stop being a tree.
And maybe that’s the point.
You don’t need to be known to be seen. You don’t need to bloom to be alive. You don’t need to chase the spring, forever.
Sometimes, being still is the deepest kind of movement.
If this stirred something in you—send it to someone who might be rushing too fast to hear the leaves turning.
They might thank you for the pause.
Or they might just notice their own tree.
life 
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