The Fall Feeling

This weekend was fantastic. It became October and with it things just seemed crisper in the city. On Saturday I walked up to the Union Square farmer's market and actually got excited over seeing pumpkins and squash and fall food in general. Fall is my favorite season. I love when it begins to get cool enough to wear sweaters without being so cold you have to wear a jacket and I love the light, for some reason. Everything looks brighter during the day or something but not blinding like summer. I wandered through for a while, picking up some squash and admiring the fresh produce that reminds me of home, of this man that used to drive his pick up truck around our area, pulling into driveways with the back loaded with his harvest. When I was little, Mom used to let me pick out almost whatever I wanted (that she could fix) and on top of that, he kept lollipops in the front for kids.

Fall makes me miss school. I remember that Tom Hanks quote in "You've Got Mail": "I wish I could send you a bouquet of pencils." That's what I think of, that newness of spirit and fresh paper and sharpened pencils and new pens. I used to love that about school when I was a kid. This was my favorite time of year then too. Because Thanksgiving break was coming up, Halloween was right around the corner and teachers weren't putting on so much pressure yet. The math homework was also still manageable at this point. Which is a definite plus.

Another thing I did was to meet up with some people from craigslist. There were seven of us from just about everywhere- LA, NYC, Michigan, even Poland. We had brunch and got to know each other some. While there were some that I just didn't click with, a couple of them I feel like I might be able to become friends with. It was really exciting to feel like you had a place in the city. I'm finally beginning to feel comfortable here, to mean my apartment when I say I'm going "home", to meet people at the Angelika for crazy foreign films and to have found this AMAZING Chinese bakery down off of Canal Street that I'm now obsessed with. Finding your way in this place is really difficult. I'm usually stopped for directions at least twice a day and always want to tell them I don't know either, that I'm just as confused as they are, unsure of my surroundings. But I've begun to be able to tell people where they are and help them find where they're heading. That in itself is a huge accomplishment.

It's also helped me appreciate the humble life. I just finished reading "The Good Earth", Pearl S. Buck, something I had been meaning to read for years and just never gotten around to. It was such a humbling experience to read about the rise and fall of this family farming in rural China, starving some years, eventually getting too rich for their own good and spoiling their beautiful life. It makes me think of how I'm living now. In Manhattan, but in a tiny studio, eating cheaply, not able to afford what the city has to offer in the way of theater, concerts and even museums sometimes. But my hope, as well as my parent's is that I'll find a way to save and become comfortable. What I hope doesn't happen is that I begin to take for granted everything that I don't know. That I begin to waste money where I shouldn't.

But for now I'm just glad to be in the city with the leaves changing and air feeling good in my lungs. I feel healthy and good and ready to conquer this place. Just walking the city in the fall is enough to keep me happy as a clam!