Autumn.

At the start of September, I moved into a brand new apartment—my new home for the foreseeable future. After an entire spring and summer of knowing that this was to come, being able to ground myself into my new life was a relief.

A day later, being mostly unpacked, I brought Autumn home. I had been waiting for Autumn since May, before she was born, knowing that I would soon be saying goodbye to Freya. I named her Autumn after the season in which she would come into my life; a season that holds significance for many a reason. Within the last 3 years, my mother’s younger sister and brother passed away from cancer in the season of autumn; my late aunt loved this season in Canada, as does my mother. I think of them always; but it is in this season I think of them the most.

Autumn is a season for shedding the old, to make way for the new; a season to savour the way the sunlight dances through leaves now golden, copper, and bronze, before that which invites slowing down, retreating within, stillness and solitude. It is nature’s last hurrah, a celebration of colour, of harvest, of growth and what was, before we are gifted with the magic of winter. It is a season for endings as much as it is beginnings—a bittersweet, but beautiful reminder that the only constant in life is change. Invisible to us until the flowers have already bloomed or the leaves have become gold, nature has its own wisdom, its own process to trust for all to fall into place as it should. All is still accomplished even when the trees are bare of their leaves, plants lie dormant for months, the animals hibernate or migrate. Autumn reminds us that life is beautiful, even when things are hard; it gives me hope for all things yet to come.

In the last 7 weeks since she has been home, Autumn has brought me joy and comfort, as well as reminding me to breathe through the frustration, the challenges and trials of raising a puppy to one day become a good dog.

Below, some photos by my dear friend Brittany Esther, who captured the chaos of puppyhood & motherhood perfectly. I can’t wait to see where life takes us. You can now find us on Instagram at @camilleandautumn.

“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”
—Robert Frost.