Fall is my favorite season. No doubt the one that most resembles me, like a diluted, vast and changing reflection of my being. Part of it, at least. It offers you the most beautiful contrasts. The colors, of course, bursting on the pupil, giving the landscape a serious, joyful intensity. The light, warm and golden-brown, that you imagine on your face and arms, like a last caress. Like an invitation to go out and enjoy a few more hours of a summer already gone. And the rainy days that tell you to stay put, to listen to a bit of jazz and to let the hours pass in a comforting half-light.

Autumn is the land of happy melancholy.

I discovered the lake of Tseuzier one of those Octobers. The afternoon light, already about to set off, while I was sucking up the bends of the little mountain road, all windows open, Feu! Chatterton and Paradis blasting from the speakers. There was something exhilarating about being there. Driving along unfamiliar hillsides, pulling off on the verge to immortalize the splendour of the surroundings – hills scattered with villages, sheer and violent rocks. What a surprise to feel that energy vibrating here. The energy of discovery. Seems like there’s no need to escape too far for emotion to come up.

It was cold when I slammed the car door. The shores of the lake awaited me, in the shadows. I walked down the damp and muddy tracks, over the soft and bouncy thorns, reveling in the silence, capturing on film the architecture of this majestic panorama. Crossed paths with a few souls. I said to myself ‘I’m not alone’. It’s that over there, you are at the end of the world, at the top of the road, at the foot of the mountain, at the birth of the forest. Over there you hear the sound of the river and the wind.

The water was of a terrible, almost unreal blue. The vegetation in its last days of consecration, deep and captivating. Sometimes I would walk fast, my breathe catching in my throat. Sometimes, I would spend minutes studying the cut of a stem on the water, trying to figure out if it would make a good picture. I would hum Zone Libre and Sari d’Orcino, because there was no one to hear me underneath those branches.

Smiling and anxious, I wondered what the day after tomorrow would bring, telling myself that I must come back here one day.

If you’d like to receive my monthly inspirational newsletter filled with poetry, exclusive photos, and small, sweet things, join the mailing list right here👇🏻

music Vibes