When I was younger, maple tree had been one of my favorite trees, though I've never seen that tree in reality, only in the movies and pictures. I was enchanted by its elegance, the design of its leaves and its warm colors in autumn. I've collected many pictures of it, put them in a scrapbook and stored the ones I downloaded from photo websites in a folder in my computer. I may be crazy doing this but it made me feel good looking at such beauty over and over again.
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| one of my first attempts at capturing the beauty of maple leaves in fall |
When my friend, Levs, left for America-Canada to work as a nurse some years ago, the one request that I ask from her was to send me a maple leaf. And she did! I was so thrilled! I got three dried maple leaves taped on a writing paper. I have kept them all these years until I moved here to another country. I deposited the leaves in my keepsakes box, safe in my former home where my mother and my sister still reside. I wanted to take all my precious mementos with me, but that was not possible. What I did, though, was to make replicas by photographing them, and took the memories with me. And here are my maple leaves.
This is one of my little treasures, my one simple source of joy.
Here and now, I see several maple trees, and they spark in me the same admiration that I had in the past. My excitement escalates as I await for autumn, when their leaves will be ablaze with yellow, orange and red hues.
Still, my first maple leaves will retain their special place in my garden of memories.
