It is the season of fall foliage. The vivid colors of autumn leaves would summon numerous visitors and tourists so as to flaunt their vibrant hues pompously saturating the mountains and hills throughout the country. The cool and crisp weather of October would captivate and fascinate the seasonal pilgrims even more with the fascinating colors of nature, so the whole nation would be crowded with a myriad of mountain-hikers who are so eager to delve into the brilliant pigments of the season.
  Before we have this colorful season in the fall, the trees and plants was solely green like pines and olives. The verdant color of all leaves and fruits started out the spring or the summer comes from the pigments called chlorophyll found in plant cells and tissues. Thus, the flourishing color emerges to cover all the hills and the parks in and around the neighborhood through the summer. The natural phenomenon indicates that the green pigments grow and overflow through the process of photosynthesis or by dint of some biological energy from sunlight and soil, and in return it produces plentiful oxygen into the air.
  Then, the burgeoning color of green turns to various colors in the fall as the vigor of chlorophyll is deteriorated. With the downfall of Chlorophyll comes the beautiful autumn colors like red, yellow, and orange. Some maples and dogwood are transformed into the vivid color of red, some birches and sycamore exposes its brilliant yellow, and some oaks and hickory unveils the splendor of orange. In the end, the mountains and streets are painted with the splendid colors that have every one of the residents mesmerized for the moment.
  On a different level, the colorful vista of the fall reflects the irony of life because its beauty comes with stress and tension. Recent studies of botany and physiology show that the different hues and pigments of autumn leaves are related with environmental stress the trees and plants have to endure during the season of change in temperature. The seasonal stress provokes the destruction or reduction of the green elements from their fiber structure, unmasking the color of red and yellow. Eventually, the tensed air and shorter light in the fall cause the lovely colors. Likewise, the seasonal stress in the spring time evokes the beautiful blooming of flowers.
  Autumn leaves have to embrace their fate to create the beauty of the season. By the same token, our life flourishes through the seasons of tension and stress. The vibrant beauty of life comes with mental or physical strain one has to confront and go through without evading it. Life is full of twists and turns through which we constantly wander around just like Odysseus in Homer’s story. However, once we embrace them to “go the distance” (as in Michael Bolton’s song), our life will shine in different colors and hues one day.