Fall

One thing I really appreciate since I've moved from CA to the Midwest is the changing of the seasons. In CA, you know it's fall when the highs move into the 70s and a few trees drop their leaves. In the Midwest, fall is when the leaves turn all sorts of colors and acorns rain on your head as you walk through the quad and when the lows are mid 30s and highs are 50s. In CA, you know it's fall when the sky randomly clouds over for a few minutes and the fog hangs around little longer in the mornings. In the Midwest, you know it's fall when the wind picks up and it's cloudy for almost a day and then the storms come for 3 or 4 hours and the day after it's completely still.

Allow me to paint you a picture. I wore jeans and a blue v-neck today. Plus a black/grey plaid scarf. Plus flip-flips. I walked out of my 5pm lab tonight around sunset. You wouldn't have known that though - the sky was a deep grey. It was surprisingly warm, probably mid 60s even accounting for the at least 15mph winds. I turned on my music player to this song and drummed and hummed and lip synced and danced my way to the bus. I have lab on the very north end of campus. The bus stop is in front of the student union, which is about as far south as you can go on the campus for classes. It's a solid 10 minute walk. So there I am, scarf twirling around me, flip-flips falling off my feet b/c I keep kicking them everywhere and jumping around. I got some weird looks from the engineering students. Then again, I usually do, so it's not terribly surprising. I think I made someone jump when I started singing with "And I replied you're listening to it here!" Most of the walk is under trees too, so I was hopping from leaf to crunchy leaf and making lots of noise.

And I couldn't help but feel happy. Like this is what college is about. I'm finally where I want to be in my life. A distant friend and I sat next to each other on the bus last week and we talked about how we've grown in college, what paths we went down that maybe we shouldn't have, which ones we liked. And I feel like it could all be summed up in that moment when I was dancing under the acorn shower. Contentment. You're at ease. You know what you want and how to get there and you don't have to be concerned with anything else that's going on, you're just living right in that moment. Sort of a peace and clarity thing going on. I think I have one of those moments every fall when the weather changes like this. It's quite wonderful.