Occasionally I have little moments of epiphany, and this one happened to be at an office party. All of a sudden I realized (now, on the last day of the semester and a couple months into my job here) that my life is charmed as it always has been, I have friends here now, new ones who like me and old ones who won't forget about me, existence seems to be full of lucky turns of fortune, and the future is bright. My bosses, my professors, my friends, my family, my roommates, are all full of goodwill, good sense, and positive forces. Their light is bright and it all shines upon me. And if perhaps there are a few things that aren't quite right yet -- if perhaps there are a few things in my life I would change -- it's okay. I have the patience to wait and the confidence to solve things and the support to really believe in what I can do -- and with all that, how can I go wrong, how can I not make everything all right in the end after all?

It still seems as though the world should have stopped turning at least for a moment or two. But the sun kept setting and Livejournal kept chattering its Christmas nonsense and people kept walking to Trader Joe's and CVS and I still had classes to go to and papers and presentations to do. I wanted to shout, or sing, or do something, but there wasn't much I could do. Fortunately my roommates were willing to listen to my endless repetitive chatter, and eventually the usual spinning of the world seemed okay again. Babies are born every day, I know, and the world can't be expected to stop turning for all of them. It's just that I never quite cared so much about any of them before.

I don't know how it somehow escaped my notice during all the autumns that I've been alive that ivy leaves change color too in the fall. I suppose technically speaking I don't know that it was ivy in particular, or maybe it was a different kind than I'd seen before, but as I was walking to school one day I suddenly realized that the thick vines covering one of the brick buildings across the street had turned glorious red and orange and yellow colors, and as a gust of autumn wind went through they made the whole building seem to undulate softly.

Of course now all the leaves have fallen off and all that remains are scaly brown vines that you can only see if you look closely. But the loss of the leaves all along the route I walk to school revealed new vistas to me as well. Buildings that once hid shyly behind trees now stand up majestically, and I can see farther down the Muddy River than I ever could before. The first time I walked to school after all the leaves were down the view was so startling, I thought a bunch of trees had been chopped down or something.

And now the snow has arrived, and I get to see Brookline covered in white for the first time. It's oddly exciting to watch the seasons change in a new place.

earlier -- later