A Thousand Autumns and Not One Was Mine

"There’s something about those fiery hues, don’t you think?"
"I do. As if the leaves have been rehearsing this transcendence for lifetimes. As if they’re thrilled to die a little, just to be reborn whole."

I have a plastic vine of fall leaves at home. My favorite part of the decor, I would never let it go. I have never seen true fall colors in the city I live in, nor anywhere while growing up. My autumn has always been the quiet, indifferent passersby, rarely noticeable.

Yet I feel a strange nostalgia for an autumn that arrives unabashed in distant worlds. It’s as if I’ve lived that autumn a hundred times, through novels, postcards, and movies. And somehow, I’ve fallen for it all, even beyond the tragic metaphors, the doomed romances, and the obligatory slow-motion walk through a park.

Sometimes, I think I can almost touch that autumn inside me. Almost see the fiery hues slowly fading, crumbling down lifeless. Almost feel the naked branches learning to stand with quiet dignity through the oncoming winter.

And I often wonder, what would I have become, had I never known the season of unbecoming!