First winds of Autumn

I love this time of the year when the wind whips up a furor and spins leaves and twigs around, blows doors open and puffs away the infamous LA smog to uncover the majestic definition of the mountains.

It’s almost as if mother nature is taking the time to sweep away cobwebs and dust bunnies and anything else that is keeping us from having a reflective introspective autumn.

Just as nature quiets down towards the end of the year, I too find my heart yearning to quiet down and listen to the silence in the air, the language of my heart yearns to speak again with the creator of each heartbeat.

The soft orange glow of the afternoon sun, a low fire kindling within, exuding warmth as the weather cools down.

I never experienced the seasons when I was living in Singapore. Yes, there were the seasonal monsoons and hot and humid periods within the year, but the trees didn’t change colour nor did the temperature soar and dive throughout the year.

Here in Los Angeles, mild though the seasons may be, the change in the weather feeds my moods. I find myself more energetic in the warm summer seasons when the trees are brisk green and the sun a harsh yellow, almost challenging me to partake in some physically demanding activity. Mellow introspection comes calling in the autumn. The leaves rustle, they dance and they whisper secrets I long to remember.

The first winds of autumn, whip the fallen leaves in a frenzy outside Kavin’s studio and spin round in circles.

Like dizzy schoolkids singing a nursery rhyme, holding hands and dancing in circles, the leaves seem to partake in their own celebration. Perhaps freed from the bonds of their lineage to the tree from which they grew, they can now float free for a little while before they dry up, wither and crackle into bits of leafy dust to be swept along the gravel of the road.

Soon, new buds will form and cover the tree again. But for now, for now, the whisper of the wind beckons and calls us to celebrate life. For in the quiet, reflective moments of autumn, we find the inspiration to live anew.