My book leaving, falling staying: an ode to the fall is a collection of images and English poems inspired by Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons which includes three scores for the season of Autumn. I see this three-way split as an indication of the complexity of Autumn, a complexity I also see as part of the human condition. Autumn Op.8 No.3 Major: Allegro (meaning brisk) and Autumn Op.8 No. 3 Major: Allegro (La Caccia) (meaning hunting) are quite energetic and upbeat in nature, while Autumn Op. 8 No. 3 Major: Adagio Molto (meaning very slow and expressive) is much quieter and slightly somber. Just like the highs and lows of the three scores, Autumn flows through inspiring moments like the beautifully coloured leaves, but also possess a foreshadowing of the cold and darkness that is still to come in winter.

 

This book is about sadness. Or rather, it is about the winding road right before sadness. It’s about the fall into sadness. It’s about the Autumn before the Winter. My approach to sadness stems from personal experience; I find that there is something much more menacing about the anticipation of and wait for this gloom, than the finality of the feeling itself.

 

Making this work was about allowing myself the space to be sad, as well as consciously stepping into sadness; manifesting and almost unearthing the sadness I carry with me always. Usually, we are taught how to drag ourselves out of feelings of despair, not willingly step into and float in them. Sadness can often feel like the greatest, most unending suffering, and while I do not advocate the burial of oneself into the airless depths of melancholy, I am proposing that we allow it to be. To allow ourselves to sit in the dirt of sadness and acknowledge its presence and weight in us. Thus allowing it to move through us. Allowing ourselves to just be sad.