the impending fall
little thing I wrote on the way home:
good morning sunshine
because my eyes are shuttered closed
& the sky is dark,
only reflecting lightning on my
closet door
you walk the other way
because my tolerance for what if
is all but gone in the face of
the impending fall where i
go nocturnal again
the maples edge on red
because my home is yours yet
the ocean stretches further
than the lake & i'm not
quite built for riding
paper boats.
Oh, fall is coming again. I was with my friends C & M (both from uni) riding the streetcar today, as we discussed all of our plans together for the coming year. Soon enough, I'll leave my city and the summer behind.
There's only so many weekends left, and so many weeks that I'm home if I take away my time abroad. Only so many days in the material library, staring out at the lake with my double espresso, sleep still in my eyes.
When I go back, I'll be coming back a little older, wiser, changed. It's better that way, to be different than when I left. I feel that the change is absolutely for the better. At the same time, I keep having this itching feeling that I'm running out of time for something. I'm not quite sure yet.
Maybe it's the fleeting nature of living away for school. My periods are marked with such intense shifts, as I move away from my family nest back to nocturnal piano nights and rampant blizzards. I wrangle my friends like butterflies in the cup of my hands, and they always seem to slip out round Christmastime. And then, as soon as I settle at home with a warm bowl of mac and a romcom, the butterflies swarm my train ride back home, and I can't see the city trailing behind me in the storm.
In the back of my mind, I often think how many times I'll go back and forth before I either settle in my home city or somewhere else. While I'm away, what if it's the last time seeing someone and I don't even know? I often have to swat these anxious thoughts away in pursuit of my higher goals and aspirations, and the reminder that life will work in funny ways no matter where I am. It's always life vs. the project, however the project must be influenced and supported by life.
One thing I've learned about my work this summer is how much I thrive on being around similarly inclined people. I walked home with a coworker the other day, discussing mostly architecture school. As we got on the short streetcar ride back, we started talking about art, as he asked me whether or not I was going to keep pursuing fine arts outside of academics.
I explained that I already was to some extent, and showed him some of my zines. We started to really get into discussion, as he was telling me about a documenting project he had in mind, and then naturally, my stop came. It makes me quite sad to think that this is another budding, fleeting friendship in my back and forth of school, home. In these 4 month terms, it's the perfect amount of time to get to know someone until you're teetering on the edge of solidified friendship, and then the commonality is ripped away, to be replaced with your new, or returning normal.
Ah, life. Just some lamenting!