Letting the Leaves Fall
Autumn and the Art of Letting Go... In the Forests of the Carpathians Near Brasov - Issue #32
The autumn colors in the forests in and around Brasov, Transylvania, are getting more and more intense every day. We’ve been walking through the deciduous trees since the first week of October, and witnessed an explosion of colors around us, from different shades of green and just a bit of color a few weeks ago, to bright reds, oranges, and yellows and muted browns over the weeks we’ve been here.
Dear Readers,
We’ve been living in Brasov for the month of October, exploring the surrounding mountains, hiking through deciduous forests, and up higher, to pine-filled areas and even above the tree-line.
This is the first of my upcoming posts featuring this beautiful area I once - briefly - called home.
Hope you enjoy it.
From hikes to Tampa Mountain to different routes up towards Poiana Brasov, and an amazing, intense hike up to Ciucas Mountain, we’ve walked through the Southern Carpathians almost every day of October. The trees didn’t disappoint, while the weather was perfect most days for a walk or hike in the shadow of oak, maple, birch, ash, chestnut, and other native trees.
As they change colors this time of the year, they add a gorgeous artistic palette to our surroundings.
Our rented apartment in the center of the city looked up on Tampa Mountain, where we noticed the change daily in the colors of the trees.
In the street, looking up onto the hill with the Citadel on it, we witnessed the change of colors as well.
Walking along the city wall along the small creek, and forest at the bottom of the hill with the White Tower and Black Tower on it, we also watched the trees changing from the greens of our first days here to a burst of colors, including yellows, oranges, and browns.
On our daily walks along the Promenade at the bottom of Tampa Mountain we enjoyed the shade of mature oak and chestnut trees, and watched them change slowly into their fall colors.
But it was along the two separate roads towards Poiana Brasov where we witnessed nature’s most spectacular showcase of changing colors.
And then there was our steep hike to Ciucas Mountain, showcasing the surrounding peaks, both filled with evergreens and deciduous forests. The combination of these forests, meadows, and high rocky peaks offered some of the best views of our trip.
Dead leaves crunch under my feet as I walk through the forest, the favorite sound of autumn of my childhood. The last rays of the setting sun shines through the forest, highlighting its new fall colors of amber, golds, reds, yellows, and browns, intertwined with different shades of green of several varieties of pine and spruce.
The old, abandoned road once used for cars driving up Poiana Brasov is now a footpath used by locals and visitors like us, enjoying the sights and smells of the forest, its changing colors and fallen leaves.
Up, on top of the highest rocks, I notice a couple sitting, enjoying the sunset and most likely the colors of the forest below them. The rocks add a splash of white to the otherwise colorful surroundings featuring all the autumn colors of a forest in the mountain, with both deciduous trees and evergreens.
Autumn in Transylvania is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. I realize now that I took it for granted when I lived here. Returning for an occasional visit, I appreciate the beauty of the mountains filled with some of the densest forests of Europe.
All the surrounding forests are showcasing their peak colors during our last days here. I appreciate their beauty and the great weather we had this month during our stay here.
The autumn leaves, once vital and green, transform into beautiful works of art before descending to the ground, reminding us the passage of time, of letting go and embracing change.
As I watch a golden leaf flutter on the tip of a branch, then slowly fall to the ground, I can’t help but appreciate of the tree’s ability to letting go gracefully.
I need to learn this art from the trees. The art of letting go - gracefully, without much drama - of worries, expectations, hurt feelings, old annoyances. Like the tree, stripped of its old leaves, empty, has room to grow new leaves in the spring, I need to allow my old feelings to fall to give room for new relationships to develop - even with the same people.
It’s not easy, this letting go. I first noticed the leaf fluttering, shaking at the tip of a branch, though I couldn’t detect any wind. “It will soon fall,” I thought, and kept watching it. Then slowly, the branch let it go, and the bright, colorful leaf slowly made its way to the ground.
It takes a while even for one leaf to fall, it takes a whole season for the tree to let go of all its colorful leaves. It can’t be easy, but the tree accepts the change gracefully. Does she know that new leaves will spring up from her empty branches again? Or just accepts the emptiness, and the new beginnings, her bright green new leaves will take her by surprise in the spring and fill her with joy?
Accepting change without crying for old times, is something I can learn from the tree as it changes through seasons, bringing beauty into the world with each step.
Looking through the old photographs of my child and young adult self, walking the same streets I walked as a child I feel nostalgia, but I also realize that I can’t return to it. Its nostalgic, but the feeling has a certain beauty, like autumn, as soon as I accept it.
No, I can not go back to my childhood home again, except as a tourist, but my present life is so fulfilled and happy, like a bright, colorful forest, there is no reason for me to look back. Just as the leaves of the trees in autumn are different from their young versions, I am different from my young self. But this difference brought a beauty and fulfillment I couldn’t have imagined or expected as my younger version.
It’s somehow fitting that I stand in this gorgeous autumn forest during the autumn of my life, with so much beauty around me and behind me, my heart is ready to burst as I think of it. Surrounded by beauty in every sense of the word, I am finally learning from the forest the art of letting go of the past.
There is beauty in letting go. Just like the trees let go of their colorful, bright, mature leaves, I need to let go of my expectations from my old homeland.
I am enjoying the autumn of my life, the beauty it brings that only came with age and experience.
Autumn is about change. And this change is inevitable. It is also beautiful. When we see it this way, we can enjoy it more fully.
Thank you for reading Letters from a Wanderer! Have a beautiful autumn day!
Love,
Emese
Beautiful and captivating photography and thoughts, Emese. What a lovely sojourn.
love it