She can't help looking back, remembering, as the leaves have been falling these last few weeks...today she noticed a few trees still draped in gold, burnt orange, occasional red, but it's mainly bare branches now against a sky growing colder day by day. Falling leaves - why do they always remind Coppelia of what she has lost? It's all so final, a tree crying leaves like tears, as each one drops the tree becomes more naked, until, leaf by leaf, finally all summer's glory is stripped away. Last year at this time little did she realise how her life would soon be turned upside down. She remembered that autumn, her despair, the buildup to events that erupted last December...yes she is much happier here, and thankful for that. But a whole year has passed, and she is still haunted by what might have been, by what has passed and will never return. Their love was like a tree crowned and bursting with full leaf and blossom, basking under a long heady summer sky...yes, falling leaves can only speak of loss, of what was and is no more.
The tree outside her window began its weeping about a month ago - gracefully they danced down, no hurry, swinging like a waltz, lifted left then right, lower and lower till each one brushed the ground before coming to rest there until the wind rose again. Then they would scuffle and flit with a restlessness echoed by that in Coppelia's own heart. Thoughts, memories, blowing around like dry leaves.
