It was a good day, but not in the connection to people sort of way. It was a day in which I fully felt the wholeness of myself, my ability to be on my own and be complete. It is not only in chemistry lab that I can immerse myself totally and rely only on myself, but also as I sit in the library copying pictures from a Mesoamerican codex, running off a quick paper in Lathrop, curled up on the futon reading for seminar. Or at seminar, just being, just experiencing: the way the professor's house smells like my grandparents' -- the flavor of fresh guacamole and vegetarian chili and sesame seed salad dressing -- the orangey glow of light warming the room -- the velvety chairs pushed close around a table -- the circle of such different people with different experiences, seriously sharing and listening and thinking and analyzing and learning from each other -- the disarray of bottles and glasses and napkins and food on the table -- the enthusiasm and wholeheartedness of the professor guiding us -- the cat walking across the couch -- seeing people through the glass in my hands as Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" runs through my head -- but despite that, not wishing for anyone, just for this moment to stay with me forever.

I spend so much of my time discontented, but there is enough living in those moments to last for ages. I just don't know how to spread it out properly.

So how does one go about breaking a curse? The Daily Show spoofed this very problem in a segment earlier this week. Having your teeth knocked out by a home run to the Monster Seats? Pounding on a bar as hard as you can? Or do you look back to the source? Divers have tried for years to find Babe Ruth's piano in a muddy pond to no avail. What else is there? How do you get the dead to forgive?

The preoccupation with the curse is reflected in our desires for the team as well. Should we be terrified of trading away star players for fear of repeating history? Red Sox Nation cried out when Nomar was traded this July, not only because of the loss of a beloved icon, but from terror that we were repeating Harry Frazee�s fateful move. Do we want a team with a couple of big names who hit it out of the park every night, or do we want a team that can play "small ball" and work their way around the bases? In the end, it's a question of, was Frazee right or was he wrong? Do we give in to the power of the past by saying "He should never have sold the Bambino!" or do we turn our back on it and say "No, Babe, he was right -- now stop haunting us."

Maybe there is nothing we can do to change it, but maybe there is a way we can know. If to break the curse we have to do something that has never been done before -- we have. No baseball team has ever come back from being down 3-0 to win a 7-game series, until now. We played the longest games in ALCS history both by the clock and by innings. Unbelievable. If to break the curse we have to beat the Yankees, we have, in the most dramatic way possible. And the biggest thing -- if to break the curse, we have to realize Frazee's dream of the Sox as "a winning team, rather than a one-man team that finishes in sixth place," a team that "are all great players and hard, conscientious workers," -- we have done that too, in a stunning performance where everyone was needed, everyone was used, everyone played a part. The oft-abused Lowe took us through two of our four victories. The long games required every bit of bullpen we had. Sure, Pedro pitched his game and Ortiz got his homers, but Mark Bellhorn, Dave Roberts, Orlando Cabrera, and Curtis Leskanic all left their marks too, in moments when Johnny Damon�s reliable bat was silent and when it was feared that Schilling was done for the season. The starting pitchers went to the bullpen. Varitek caught knuckleballs. Everyone did what they had to do as a team, and some of the bright stars stepped aside for just long enough to show that it isn't just them, it is this entire team that is emitting this glow.

It's that time of year again when I sit in front of the TV every night with a book in my lap, never turning the pages, too distracted by the annual baseball showdown. I know perfectly well that if only the Sox season would end, I would be less behind on my work, but still I want nothing more than to not be able to focus on chemistry for yet another night. I pace around. I explain force plays to my roommate. I jump up and yell at the television in the middle of my explanation. I stay up way too late. I skip wind ensemble rehearsal. I am, in short, a complete nut.

At heart it is a sort of epic drama. I almost cried when in tonight's game the starting pitchers walked out to the bullpen -- in that good way, that happens sometimes in very good movies. I still can't figure out why or what I think it resembled or symbolized. I just know that it's crazy to be this tied up in this game.

At the end of it I would like nothing more than to be one of those people standing together in Fenway Park shouting and biting their nails for hours in unison, I would like nothing more than to be one of those people who last night flooded out into Yawkey Way in complete ecstasy over the extra-innings victory, I would like nothing more than to be one of those sleepy Bostonians coming into work today, slowing the city to an uneasy stasis until everyone wakes up and starts pacing as the baseball begins again.

I love apple harvest festivals. I think someday I am going to have to either live in a place where there is one, or make a solemn promise to myself that I will travel to one every year no matter how far I have to go.

I remember when I was little going to harvest festivals in my mother's hometown. All I have left are vague impressions of it, but I know there were booths everywhere with christmas ornaments and candy apples and all kinds of other shiny things. I remember energy and excitement and the smell of the air in autumn, my favorite season.

My most recent memory is last autumn with Kate, browsing the booths and the quaint shops of downtown Ithaca: paper lanterns and used books and shiny jewelry and winter hats. There was traditional fair food as well as the odd Indian food booth and of course apples, always apples, candied and caramel, cut up and on sticks. Kate could always make our dreams seem easily feasible even as we expressed them, and so it was an afternoon where anything seemed possible, from hair dye and halloween costumes to starting a punk band. Don't anyone try to tell me that autumn is about dying and decay, because I have been there and seen it and I know that it is more than anything full of promise.

Remembering the Yale trip is like going through a maze, both that of my mind and that of an unfamiliar campus. And it is funny how, trying to navigate a new city, memories come in sharp bright chunks in the midst of a grey fuzziness, and all the time I am trying to use them to orient myself. Where was this large sculpture and which way does it mean I should go? I remember this restaurant, but what street was it on? The place is right through this gate, I know, but it's locked -- now what? So many discrete moments, preserved, so many possible interpretations -- in the end, being lost among the imposing stone buildings and gated courtyards of Yale resulted in exactly the same desperation of memory and understanding as everything about human interactions that has been troubling my mind these days.

earlier -- later