I noticed the leaves falling very slowly. Many times there were branches a meter long with only three small leaves. For one of my posts, I made a drawing that showed the beautiful mix of green leaves and others already starting to turn golden, still strong even with the wind on a cloudy day in Mile End. Now it has been colder, and when I leave my classes it is already dark, and I don’t have many opportunities to see the contrast of the leaves against the sky, not only because of the absence of light but also because of the current absence of leaves. Everything happened gradually, in a way that allowed me to perceive this wandering and omnipresent metamorphosis with no set time to end.

Having lived my whole life in Brazil, time also passed slowly, in the blink of an eye, but because every day was sunny with fluorescent green leaves, it was impossible to know the season or the moment the world was in, I only knew myself. Going to Wellesley, I experienced my first shock: abrupt temperature changes, the great wall between summer and autumn falling in front of me from one day to the next, and the feeling that time was slipping through my fingers becoming even more unreachable. A guilt took over my heart as I watched the beauty of nature from the Pendleton window while knowing I couldn’t go out until I finished studying.

Here, I feel calm again, I no longer carry guilt but pride when I can finally step outside myself and observe divine creation. I feel connected to something bigger than myself when I experience such peace from nature, but when I lock myself in my room, I cannot know something greater, and it would be impossible to love something I do not know. I live in a relationship of high emotional dependence on the comfort of myself, which was never truly that comfortable. “It is impossible to be happy alone” — Vou te Contar, Tom Jobim.

Thinking about how nature is intertwined in people’s lives, it becomes impossible not to mention the EIP goals, which I read in the Corporate Report Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) 2025 on 1 December 2025, and one of the things that most draws my attention: the inclusion of a circular economy as part of the framework to protect and improve the environment, and how this contrasts with various ideas such as those of Boris Johnson. Although he supported some environmental policies, he often argued that strict environmental regulations could “hold back economic growth.” 

Reading further into the EIP, I noticed how the document places nature at the center of several national missions, connecting it not only to environmental goals but also to economic growth, public health, safety, and access to opportunity. It highlights how England’s natural assets are valued at £1.3 trillion and how woodlands removed 8.3 million tonnes of CO₂ in 2022. The plan also explains how investments in restoration, green industries, and circular economy reforms are expected to support jobs and infrastructure, with £104 billion going into the water sector alone and an estimated £10 billion coming from new recycling systems. 

Other goals focus on expanding access to green spaces, improving air and water quality, addressing waste crime, and ensuring that children and young people have more opportunities to experience nature. Even the clean energy mission is tied to environmental recovery, with actions like restoring peatlands, increasing woodland cover, and embedding wildlife corridors into new energy infrastructure.

After spending weeks returning to the same spot and watching it shift day by day, it became easier to see how these national initiatives exist within the same continuum as the small changes unfolding in front of me.