As the Leaves Shift from Green to Gold

Emiko is an American student studying in Germany as part of the CBYX (Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange) scholarship exchange program. 

I truly feel like I am living in a fairy tale.

Most mornings, I rise before the sun and bike to school through low-hanging clouds of mist. Water droplets cling to my eyelashes as I weave between rolling hills and along uneven dirt paths, breathing in the crisp air of a waking world. In those early hours of the morning, the world presents itself as a dreamscape painted with oil pastels and washed with a gentle amber light. It is especially during these moments that I feel so free. The sheer space between the lowest points of the ground and the highest curve of the clouds creates a vast openness that very few other places could ever replicate. It conjures this unbarred headspace where every weight lifts and opens the coming day to any possibility.

Here in Bavaria, I’ve begun to notice the trees. The same ones I pass by each day appear to shift their colours when I’m not looking – the soft greens have melted into deep reds, sunlight catching between the leaves and tracing them in gold. At times, it feels as if the forest is playing a game with me, like dress up: It flaunts its new outfits in the shades of its leaves and the posture of its branches, slowly unveiling itself behind tree trunks and in the reflection of glistening rivers. As the leaves fall, they paint the ground with the most spectacular patterns, shifting with even the slightest breath of wind. When the breeze comes, these fallen leaves lift and swirl up into the sky, each finding a new resting place until another gentle gust carries them onward once more.

The sun reaches its apex slightly lower above the horizon each day as winter approaches, but that certainly doesn’t make it any less bright. With the time change coming up, we won’t have the gift of afternoon light for much longer. Knowing this, I treasure every moment of my walk home where the sun shines on my face. Even if it blinds me, I’m grateful I still see its sunny rays even for a short time every day.

Sometimes though, when the clouds close in and all I can see above me is a grey fog hanging low in the sky, it makes me miss the sun. As a Coloradan who is used to over 300 days of sunshine throughout the year, rainy days were my favorite due to their scarcity. It’s almost the opposite here, with more overcast days than anything else, but I can almost always still see the sky still sparkling with tiny droplets of water catching the sun’s light. When the days come to end with the promise of rain, I can’t help but yearn to look out the window and watch as the sky turns heavy and the rain plays its percussion on the rooftops and riverbanks.

As colder days proliferate and warmer jackets emerge from winter boxes, I’ve sensed the cold will be a visitor that’s here to stay for a while. It might nip at my fingers on my way to school or altogether stop me from taking a bike, but I’m sure it will introduce me to the German holidays and how the people here greet the season. Warming up with new foods and learning the intricacies to new traditions are certainly the perfect way to ease the seasons’ shift from autumn to winter.