Something about autumn brings out a deep nostalgia for beginnings. My life started in the fall. The old academic traditions that were beaten into me over the years all kick off their rituals just as the leaves are beginning to turn. Instead of a time for watching the world slip off to sleep it feels more like an awakening for me.
This excitement is only a piece of what makes me miss my work at the University but it’s an important one. I can remember the feeling in the air on the first cool day. A great time to take my coffee outside and listen to the people. Time for a new notebook. Cracking the seal and breaking in the spine. Maybe even a new writing instrument. Fretting over the first stroke of the pen and then writing with abandon.
And the new books! Treating myself to something meaty. A big book. A challenge. Underlining. Notes. Dog-earring pages. The extra weight in my bag. The long walks I would take at lunch to listen to new music. Those listening sessions are a walk through history! In my conservatory days, it was a pocket cassette player. When I was in New York it was a CD player with freshly burned mixes or friends’ pieces. In the frozen wilds of Minnesota, I moved to a MiniDisc player. Finally, an iPod. So much listening. Now I have my seemingly endless commute and fewer opportunities to walk and listen. The spaces don’t seem to exist for that in my daily routine.
In the north, there was a reverie that descended when the sun had moved a bit. The skies were a perfect, clear blue. The sound of the leaves in the trees drying out was like the ticking of a clock toward the first real freeze that would force my lunches inside, to the library or bookstore. Those days between the breaking of the summer heat and the first snow were precious.
Those days are here again – though they are different in my current latitude. One thing that hasn’t changed is the urge to create – to bite off more than I can possibly chew. It feels good.
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