Autumn; a season that defines the term Beauty in Chaos. The world becomes awash with warm colors of yellow gold, burnt orange, warm reds that entrance its inhabitants. The air is crisp with a scent that can only can be described as that of Autumn. A breeze blows the leaves gently as they fall covering the ground in a myriad of colors, softening the footsteps that tread down the path drawn toward the light that gleams through the trees.
I am unable to see an Autumn picture without imagining that path through the trees leading to a brook, a creek of running water, leaves floating in the current, ripples heard as the water falls over the smooth stones. Why must there be a brook in my scene? Because it is my name, Autumn Brooke, the true personification of chaotic beauty. I have spent my life in wonder if I mirror the season for which I was named, or does the season of Autumn itself; define me?
When I was first born my mother wrote a poem called Autumn Leaves. It begins with a description of the season, similar to that above. The second paragraph is a description of the word Autumn, hair of yellow gold, a smile bright like the sun, bubbling laughter carried in the wind this is now what Autumn means to her. I was worthy of being named after a season, my mother’s beautiful description gave me a measure that I spent years believing that I needed to live up to until I began to create opinions of my own and Autumn didn’t hold the same beauty to me.
What I saw was death, destruction, and bitter cold, sadness amongst the trees as the once beautiful leaves lost their color and dropped as they died. The grass became brown and brittle, the flowers withered and died. Eventually I grew brave enough to share my opinion with my mother and how I didn’t see the beauty that she saw in my name. It was then that she changed my view not just on my name, or the season, but my entire way of life.
Autumn wasn’t a season of death but of that leading to a rebirth. Every year the trees grew new leaves and flowers would bloom, the earth alive with the new and as the months passed and Autumn approached the world was once again a washed with bold, bright, colors before the leaves fell to make way for new. A chance to live each season to its fullest knowing that the slate would be wiped clean and we could start anew.
What a glorious way to view life, knowing that nothing was permanent and there was always room for change. I had to reevaluate what that meant for me, as I had always tried to be the beauty that my mother envisioned, but I saw Autumn as death but also rebirth, such confusion, disarray, and chaos in that thought. That was until I combined her viewpoint with mine and became beautiful chaos. It is a perfect description of the season of Autumn, and in such the personification of myself, Autumn Brooke. Constantly changing, allowing the seasons of life to be lived to the fullest but embracing the imperfections, because there is beauty in all that we encompass through ourselves and that around us.
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