The Weight of Fallen Leaves

I keep a pressed maple leaf inside the pages of a dictionary I bought when I was twenty. It has turned the color of dried tobacco, brittle and thin as a moth’s wing, yet it still holds the shape of the tree it once belonged to. When I touch it, I am reminded that we spend our lives trying to anchor time, pressing our experiences between heavy covers, hoping that if we keep them long enough, they will never truly turn to dust. We are all archivists of our own small histories, gathering fragments of the seasons that have passed through our hands. We fear the wind that strips the branches bare, forgetting that the shedding is what allows the earth to breathe. There is a quiet, heavy grace in knowing that some things are meant to be held only for a season, and that even when the color fades, the memory of the gold remains. If we stopped trying to save every leaf, would we finally be free to watch them fall?

Fidan Nazim Qizi has captured this delicate passage of time in her work titled Autumn on the Book. It feels like a quiet invitation to sit with the things we have gathered and the stories we are ready to release. Does this image remind you of a season you are currently holding onto?