Autumn is my favourite time of the year in forests, where the trees show their brilliant selves and colour explodes in a delirious confusion of golds and reds and fading greens.

I watch in wonder as the leaves shake and dance in the wind. I feel the trees are speaking to each other in bright messages beyond our senses.

“Summer is over! Winter is coming! Bring the sap to your hearts, shed the leaves to blanket your roots! Winter is coming! Let’s dance before we sleep!”

It was October, 12 years ago. I was in Moscow and was about to move to Canada. I rented a house in Vancouver almost at random.

There were no photos on the internet and no reputable booking sites at that time; no flattering pictures and verified reviews.

My flight to Canada took me far over the Arctic. I couldn’t sleep because I was excited and nervous.

I walked out of the airport into autumn. I stopped, closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, feeling the fresh, crisp air expand inside me with all its promise and dreams.

“Hello Vancouver, my new city. Finally, I came to you. Hello, my new life!” I said with the pure hope of a stranger.

I looked out the window of the taxi as we raced beneath the towering branches of maple trees, a canopy of red so vivid in the sun that I felt a thrill of beauty that filled me to the core.

I came to an unassuming house in a neighbourhood of small yards and low fences.

The door opened right away and there was a smiling woman flanked by her excited dog.

I felt a glow of friendliness as she introduced herself as Kathy, and I could see her dog, Matt, was wagging his tail for all he was worth. Inside, came a rush of questions about life in Russia. I was the first Russian that Kathy had ever met.

The walls in the living room were painted in different colours, and she laughed when she saw my puzzled face: “I’m a painter at a movie production studio!”

She laughed even harder as my eyes widened.

She said it was the best job in the world because she had a chance to be on the sets of many famous TV series and films.

At home she impulsively repainted the walls in different colours so as not to be bored by her own place.

We chatted for a while and I asked her to show me the room I’d rented.

I walked into it and froze. I could not believe my eyes and was in complete shock. The room was absolutely empty and cold.

A lonely inflatable mattress was pressed to the bare grey wall.

“Is that all?” I asked her in despair.

“Yes, I am really sorry. I know I should have put some furniture in it but we are in production at the studio and I didn’t have time. You are my first roommate,” she said quietly, looking at her feet.

I sat on the mattress and I did not even have the strength to cry.

I was numb after a long and exhausting 13-hour flight, and the nervousness of immigration where the officer scrupulously checked all my papers and asked countless questions about me.

I felt drained and exhausted on every level. I knew it was only myself who had made this decision to leave my well-established business, my friends and my own language.

Here I was in another country — in an empty room.

“Maybe this is the way to start a new life — light,” I tried to cheer myself up.

I lay down and closed my eyes. All my turbulent, interesting, intense, exotic world in Moscow swept past me.

“Why did I do this? How could I? How would I find the strength to begin again in a new country?”

I grilled myself for hours with prickly and harsh questions.

That night I did not sleep for a minute. I thought that it does not matter whether I’m lying on a bare mattress in an empty room or on a huge bed in a five-star luxury hotel, I will always remain myself.

I am me. No one will ever take this away from me.

Everything in the future would depend only on me. I felt like an artist sitting in front of a white canvas.

What brush to take, what colour to choose was mine. I was not going to settle for the grey colour of this room.

Like Kathy, I would paint a bold, colourful and different life.

The next day, Kathy brought a lamp and a desk from work and a bed from downstairs.

She helped me paint the walls in pastel blue. I bought a framed picture of the tropical ocean, and I put an extravagant bouquet of fiery red maple leaves in a vase.

I thought of the maple trees and the canopy of red that waved and welcomed me as I drove from the airport.

I realised that the world outside was beckoning me to explore, it was showing me a glimpse of its beautiful face and I went outside for a long walk through the tree-filled parks ablaze in autumn colours, and down to the seawall of the harbour.

A woman in a brilliant pink body suit swooped past me on rollerblades and vanished around a bend in the path.

“That will be me,” I thought, and smiled from my heart. “I am only getting started.”

We all have moments when we feel lonely, perhaps in an empty room in a strange city.

We all have times when we must start all over again. At this moment, walk out into the world outside and open your eyes wide.

Think about the future and visualise yourself on a beautiful path to a destination that is yours. Take big steps, and walk as straight and tall as you can.

Don’t forget to look up. The trees are waving you on.

• Nina London is a certified wellness and weight-management coach. Her mission is to support and inspire mature women to make positive changes in their body and mind

Share your inspirational stories with her at www.ninalondon.com