The Season That Teaches Us to Let Go
A leaf can fall after giving shade for an entire season. A chapter can close after giving us something we will carry for years.
Gowher Bhat
Autumn arrives quietly, almost as if it does not want to disturb us. The leaves begin to change colour, the air turns cooler, and the days slowly become shorter. Before we realise it, the green trees around us are covered in shades of yellow, gold, orange and brown. Then, one by one, the leaves begin to fall, leaving behind a landscape that feels both familiar and new.
In Kashmir, autumn has its own unmistakable beauty. The chinar trees slowly turn shades of gold and red, while their fallen leaves spread across roads, gardens and open spaces. For those who have grown up around these trees, the season can bring back memories of school days, family walks, old neighbourhoods and familiar places. The landscape itself seems to become a quiet reminder of the years that have passed.
There is something deeply beautiful about this change. Unlike spring, which announces itself with new flowers and fresh green leaves, autumn speaks in a softer voice. It reminds us that change does not always have to be dramatic. Sometimes, it happens slowly, almost unnoticed, until we suddenly realise that something is no longer the way it used to be.
That is perhaps why autumn makes us think about our own lives. We grow older, people move away, children grow up, friendships change and familiar places become memories. Yet none of this means that the past loses its value. Autumn simply reminds us that some things can be beautiful even when they do not last forever.
This feeling has always found a natural home in literature. Writers have often turned to nature to understand time, change, memory and belonging. Autumn gives them a language that everyone can understand because we can see its message in the trees around us.
In Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery gives nature an important place in Anne’s world. Anne notices beauty in ordinary things and finds wonder in trees, roads, gardens and changing skies. Her way of looking at the world reminds us that a familiar place can become special when we learn to see it differently.
Autumn offers us that same opportunity. A tree that we have passed every day can suddenly catch our attention when its leaves turn golden. A road that once seemed ordinary can look completely different when it is covered with fallen leaves. Even a quiet evening can bring back an old memory because the colours, smell or light remind us of another time.
In such moments, it is not always the place that has changed. Sometimes, it is the way we see it.
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women also captures the quiet movement of time. The March sisters grow from childhood into adulthood, and their lives gradually take different directions. The home and family that once seemed permanent also become part of a changing world.
That is one of the truths of growing older. We continue moving forward, even when a part of us wishes that certain moments could remain exactly as they were. Autumn carries a similar feeling because the season changes before our eyes, yet the trees remain standing as reminders of what they were only a few weeks earlier.
Many of us have experienced something similar with books. A story that we loved as children can feel completely different when we read it again years later. The words remain the same, but our understanding has changed because we have changed.
The same is true of places. A childhood home, an old school, a favourite park or even a small street can remain alive in our memory long after we have left it. Sometimes, all it takes is an old photograph, a familiar smell or an autumn evening to take us back for a moment.
Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows understands this feeling of belonging particularly well. Its river, woods and familiar homes create a world where places are closely connected with memory and comfort. The characters do not simply live in their surroundings; those surroundings become part of who they are.
Autumn can make us feel the same connection with the places that shaped us. A chinar tree outside an old house may remind us of someone we once knew. A path covered with leaves may bring back walks from years ago. A cool evening may suddenly remind us of a childhood afternoon that we had almost forgotten.
This is one of the quiet powers of memory. It can remain hidden for years and then return through something very small.
Marcus Aurelius also reflected deeply on change and the temporary nature of life in Meditations. His Stoic reflections encourage us to accept that change is part of existence rather than something we can permanently prevent. Autumn turns that philosophical idea into something we can see with our own eyes.
The leaf does not remain on the tree forever, but its falling does not make its earlier beauty meaningless. It had its season, and then its time came to change.
Perhaps our lives work in much the same way. A friendship may belong to one stage of life. A home may belong to another. A particular job, school or neighbourhood may become part of a chapter that eventually closes. We may wish some chapters had lasted longer, but their ending does not erase what they gave us.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince offers another gentle way of thinking about attachment and value. The little prince’s relationship with his rose shows how time, attention and care can make something precious to us. What matters is not simply how long something remains with us, but what it means while it is part of our lives.
Autumn seems to understand this perfectly. The leaves are beautiful partly because their colours will not remain forever. Their changing appearance makes us stop and appreciate them while they are still there.
The same lesson appears in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The garden begins as a neglected and forgotten place, but with care and time it changes. Its transformation reminds us that nature is always moving through different stages, and that one season is never the complete story.
Autumn, too, is only one part of a larger cycle. The leaves fall, the landscape becomes quieter, winter follows, and eventually spring returns. Nature does not see change as an ending. It simply moves from one season to another.
There is comfort in that rhythm.
Life also has its seasons. Some are full of beginnings, while others are filled with growth, change or quiet reflection. There are times when we hold on tightly, and there are times when we have to loosen our grip and allow life to move forward.
Reading can help us understand these changes because books often give words to feelings that are difficult to express. A familiar story can remind us of our childhood, while a new story can help us see an old experience from a different angle. In this way, reading becomes more than a way to pass time. It becomes a way of understanding our own journey.
Writing can do the same. An old photograph can become a paragraph, a remembered conversation can become a story, and a quiet autumn evening can become the beginning of a poem. When we put memories into words, we give them a place to live beyond the moment in which they occurred.
This does not mean that we have to hold on to everything. Sometimes, writing helps us understand what we can keep and what we must leave behind. It allows us to remember without becoming trapped in the past, while also giving us the courage to move towards what comes next.
That is why autumn feels so naturally connected with reading and writing. The season itself seems to invite reflection. The evenings become quieter, the landscape changes, and the falling leaves create a gentle reminder that time is always moving.
We turn the pages of a book while the world outside turns through another season. Somewhere between those pages, we may find a memory of our own life. We may remember a person, a place, a childhood dream or a moment that once seemed ordinary but now feels precious.
Autumn does not ask us to be sad about these things. Instead, it asks us to notice them.
It teaches us that change can be beautiful, that memories can remain meaningful, and that endings do not always have to be feared. A leaf can fall after giving shade for an entire season. A chapter can close after giving us something we will carry for years.
Perhaps that is autumn’s quiet lesson: we can let go without forgetting, remember without living in the past, and move forward without denying where we came from.
(STRAIGHT TALK COMMUNICATIONS EXCLUSIVE)
