Maybe it's because I'm in the fall spirit and I had a plaid shopping haul last week but I'm really feeling this fall, I feel like I'm living in the moment. I'm appreciative of the fact that I am a typical college student walking around a chilly college campus in the fall as the yellow-orange leaves crunch under my chocolate riding boots. As I sashay around campus with a knitted, asymmetrical black and white flecked cardigan, I feel like I can take on the world.
This past Friday as I walked around in a maroon, plaid baby doll dress with a black denim long-sleeved hooded jacket, I felt like I was seizing the season. I noticed the pink cobblestones on the Walk of Pride. I noticed that the grass on Haber Green is getting duller because it is no longer the brilliant green that it was during the summer. I wonder if there are red leaves scattered around campus because they usually form during this time of year.
When it comes to fall, I've never really been aware of my surroundings when it comes to the change of seasons. I always equate fall with academics, job responsibilities and meeting new people. Basically, I associate fall with activities, with roles, with doing in general. This is the first fall in which I can recall drinking coffee in a coffee shop with the smell of coffee beans permeating the air.This is the first fall of which I specifically associate with ideas, inspiration and rebirth as I fervently type my ideas on my touchscreen laptop. Heck, I am a senior this fall so I better feel inspired more than ever as I bask in my weightlessness.
In the spirit of the moment, in the spirit of fall, I decided to paint my toe nails a burgundy color that is near oxblood. Nobody has to see it--it’s just a reminder that I lived through fall. I lived through a season of darker mornings and near pitch-black, velvety nights characterized by the absence of a hopeful mauve sky that marks summer evenings.
Nothing beats the atmospheric smell of the chilly, woodsy air that rushes into my nostrils and brushes my cheeks when I stand into the night, waiting to get home. Even though winter is a month away, I feel like I have already lived through a lifetime of falls because I am especially aware that it is now fall. Because this is my last fall at university, I feel like this one cannot disappear in obscurity--it has to count,it has to matter. Maybe this explains my heightened sense of perception. Better yet, maybe all the literature that I have read, which usually begins with vivid descriptions of nature, have finally caught up with me. Like the retrospective Romantic poets, I find myself comparing this fall to all of the other falls that I have lived through when I consider my past selves. It's riveting that during this fall, I feel like I am perpetually walking through a whimsical forest with rare and wonderful creatures peeking out from every corner.
