When language fails, and palette struggles: the beauty of Fall

A tea with mother nature during Fall

As I hold my cup of tea today, looking at the fall foliage all around me, I struggle with words to capture it.

‘Breathtaking’ does not feel enough, ‘magnificent’ is weak and ‘Awestruck’ is commonplace or something that I use far too enough.

I blame my limited vocabulary and turn to the camera and decide to capture it in images. I take the picture of the rows of golden trees but nothing looks good on a camera screen as good as it does to my eyes.

I am mesmerized. I am fall-struck.

I try to paint the tree right in front of me, the one with the perfect shade of orange and red. But I can’t seem to find the right shade of orange and red in my colour palette. I change the proportion of water and add a little yellow but it still feels lacking. Not the same tree as I can see.

It does not feel real. It is so picturesque that a picture can’t capture it. It is so full of colors that an entire palette can’t do justice to it.

This is the Fall season.

The best time of the year with crisp leaves and cold air.

During my journey to Florence, I learned about ‘Stendhal Syndrome’. Being overwhelmed by beauty of art that it leaves you physically and mentally unwell.

Can the same apply to natural beauty as well?

This is just my third fall season. The special first was in Slovenia. My husband and I were underprepared for the trip. We knew that it will be cold in October but were not prepared for the gorgeous sights that hit us.

Gorgeous! Again a weak word to describe what I saw.

I can never forget our expressions that day. We had seen fall in movies, and pictures on social media, but nothing can ever prepare you for the colors that nature puts a show of and the emotions that you feel in your heart after witnessing it.

Fall is now my favourite time of the year. Birds fly away back to their southern homes with a promise to return next year, leaves shed their green and yearn to go close to earth and nature dons a new colour everyday. The deep shade of orange, the occasional red, and the yellow canopies.

I always wonder if it matters to the bird that the tree it is sitting on, is the most beautiful one in the entire lane. Does a tree that remains green get envious of the fiery orange one next to it, or does it stand tall and firm in the knowledge that it will remain green even when the ground is covered with snow all around while others will be a poor shade of brown?

To capture the essence of fall, I developed a taste for Pumpkin Spice latte, I have started loving sweaters, crocheted a fall cap, painted a fall scenery, read books and cozied up in the chunky yarn. But I still could not capture the feeling of fall.

My phone camera is cluttered with hundreds of images of all kinds of trees and leaves. My heart is lying somewhere on the carpet of maple leaves waiting to feel content. It keeps skipping a beat every time a red maple leaf dotted with orange boundaries on it.

I gave up on the word.

While explaining fall season to my mom, I said- it is only for a few days and then there will be snow.

And then the word came to me in Hindi.

‘shanbhangur’ क्षणभंगुर or momentary/ short-lived.

The English translation, as always, does not give full meaning to this beautiful Hindi word but it means that this is here to stay for just a moment, and then it will be all gone.

So I am in this ‘shan’ or moment to capture it in my eyes and heart because no camera, painting, book, or words can ever do justice to what I am seeing.

Do you have a word to describe fall?