GOLDEN FALL (A miniature)

Golden Fall has come to Moscow....

We also call this unique season of year "Babie leto" - our Russian analogue of "Indian summer." The days are sunny and relatively warm - like a last farewell from the passing summer and a pleasant respite before the leaden-colored clouds of October-November cover the sky. Our greatest poet Pushkin once called our Northern summer "a cartoon of Southern winters", but we value it even more because it is so short, almost elusive.... and even though one still can feel some freshness in the air, like the one which characterizes Russian April, September's air is definitely different - like a tune in minor key in comparison with major.

The weakening sunrays from above caress so tenderly the golden domes and frameworks of icons inside the churches, leave bright patches on window-panes, paint numerous birches and maple trees with every shade of red, orange, carmine and yellow color. And as my shoes touch the ground strewn with golden maple leaves which begin to crackle beneath my feet, that magic melody from Tchaikovsky' "October" resounds again and again in my ears - "La - sol sharp - si flat - la - la - sol - fa sharp - la - sol... " - as a bittersweet reminder that all that we consider good, all that we hold close to our hearts has to come to end. All has to pass away someday in order to give way to something else, maybe even no less delightful... the joy of the first snow, and New Year, and new happiness.

I'm not as young as one may think. I'm only (or already) 37, but I strongly feel that my own life is moving rapidly towards its own "Golden Fall", my own "babie leto" - literally, it means "Female summer", and it seems the name is quite appropriate in this case. How often, walking along the bustling Tverskaya and looking around, I suddenly realize that I'm thinking more about "how it was" than "how it will be." Maybe it's because I've seen too much in my life, and a year spent in Russia costs ten years in most other countries... who knows? But then I take a fallen maple leaf and hold it between my fingers, enjoying its bright shade and perfect form and breathing its moist scent. And it tells me about all the friends I still have to meet, all the books I still have to read, all the languages I still have to learn, all the countries I still have to see, all the love I still have to give... everything that I still have to do on this Earth before my winter finally comes. It tells me that "there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven"...  and that the end is ultimately nothing more but the new beginning. 

Golden Fall has come to Moscow.

Will this fall ever turn into blossoming spring for my love-filled soul?...

I certainly hope so.

Warmly from Moscow -  

Sveta