I Hate The Colors of Fall

Farah El-Jayyousi
Nov 3 · 3 min read
A tree in my backyard, Fall 2018

I have a confession to make: I secretly hate fall. When someone exclaims how beautiful the trees look and I smile and nod in agreement, I’m lying. I hate it. Everything is dying. I hate the cold. Red and green is a terrible combination. There are leaves everywhere. I am absolutely positively miserable.

But that’s not the whole truth either. The real truth is that before 2012, I loved the fall. I never cared for the cold or having to wear 10 layers in order to feel vaguely human, but I always found the colors of autumn to be breathtaking. That all changed when I got thyroid cancer. Part of my treatment included a radioactive iodine scan which involved 30 minutes of laying very still on my back while pictures were taken. The ceiling of the radiology department in the hospital is decorated with these ugly, multicolored autumn leaves which I assume were put there to give people like me something to look at while waiting for the scan to be over. Even though I only had to do this particular scan a total of 4 times, it felt like I spent the entirety of the summers of 2012 and 2013 staring at those awful autumn leaves that somehow passed as decoration.

Since then, I haven’t been able to see the colors of fall without thinking about my illness and everything that went along with it.

6 years later, while driving down Scott Boulevard in Columbia, Missouri, I saw this singular, brilliant red tree at the top of a hill, framed by a vibrant sunset and it took my breath away. I didn’t get a chance to take a picture, so I painted it. I think this is the point when things began to change. This tree remained the exception to my overall impression of fall, but something had shifted, ever so slightly.

The painting of the tree on Scott Boulevard, Fall 2018

Now, 7 years later, in Stony Point, New York, I’m beginning to appreciate the fall again. There is a beauty in the necessary death of everything around us. A last burst of flame before going out. A slow rumble beneath the surface, preparing for rebirth. There is value in falling down and getting back up again that cannot be had by never falling down. It parallels my own experience this year, when a debilitating period of illness opened doors I didn’t know were there and allowed me to grow and heal in ways that I could not have done otherwise. I believe it was because of this latest experience with illness that my perspective is changing.

Illness resulted in two very different perceptions of the fall each of these times. I think the key difference this second time around is that this period of illness was coupled with a great deal of reflection and turning inward. Without that reflection, I do not think I would have ever connected this second experience with autumn, and I would still probably hate the fall with a vengeance.

So here’s to always changing, growing, and learning to love the fall again.

Lake Sebago in New York, Fall 2019