Vermont

I wished this could be the year I finally saw the leaves turn in Vermont. Not that I've seen them before, but that I've more or less dreamed of it. Walking along some gravel trail alone, hands in pockets, face turned downward into a scarf as I paced carefully over each red-yellow-brown leaf already felled. Deceased. Hearing that gratifying crunch as heel met earth. 


It's good to be here in this moment. But there are no seasons here. Our perception of time is marked in fog as it curls itself over mountains, swallowing whole cities in its decent to the Pacific. Autumn has begun, and with it the relentless rain waits somewhere beyond where the eye can see. The skies themselves have turned sour, a perpetual grey. And within myself I feel a warmth growing, a comfort in knowing that Oakland will revert to this half-hum that I love best. The tourists will all have gone away and all that's left will be us, those peoples disassociated with grandeur images of the bay area. Separate entities that run the course of its veins, bringing life to our hearts, coming and going these months as each morning


the fog rolls in. The fog burns off. And the rain engulfs us in its relentlessness. 


This was the year I wished I could finally see the leaves turn in Vermont. Where behind my eyes some old, out of key piano played a familiar tune I couldn't quite place as I walked, coming and going in my own right. I needed something older, something beyond my control, something celebrated. I wanted to taste fresh maple syrup in an unfamiliar place, cast a shadow by some new fire. 


But instead I sit, writing, barefoot and looking toward 9 am when the day begins.