I love spring, but autumn has always been my favourite. Love the term “fall”, so leisurely poetic. Those maple leaves were time-consuming to paint, but I had the vision of them falling in the process, I saw them floating in morning breeze, slowly descending in front of my eyes full of playfulness, and eventually land on the surface of water. The word “fall” is an abstract of the entire breathtaking process. On that note, I also like when the word is used in “falling in love” or simply “falling.” However, to me, it used to have a sense of destiny, a process of losing control, therefore often had some fear written on the flip side of its irresistible glory. But now, I feel something has shifted in me, maybe while I was falling with these maple leaves. “Falling” to me seems no longer a helpless process of crash and burn. It can be poetic and we don’t have to quit our logic. Remain conscious and in control is not conflicting with staying open and vulnerable. With that shift, the fear disappeared as well. As much they consumed me in many late nights, these maple leaves taught me something beautiful.