fall

So last night, I drove home...in Atlanta. Temperature was around 66 degrees. Balmy for some here, deep in October...

I was listening to BEIRUT and suddenly... I was transported to NYC.

specifically a long long night out in NYC. You know, one of those really good ‘long nights’...out with your peeps til 4am walking a dead-end street someplace in Brooklyn that you think you ‘know’, but in reality you’ve really never been in.

that mustardy-orange glow of the streetlights illuminating your unforgettable pre-dream memories.

that pre-chill in the air, telling you that Gotham is about to lose its leaves.

I love the fall.

I relish the fall.

I don’t think fall anywhere compares to fall in the city. ‘the city’ is NYC FYI...

fall in NYC to me growing up was always the same staccato rhythm;

Mom’s bday in September - always at the cousins in Astoria and dinner at Angelo’s in Little Italy

pre-Halloween Shopping - Chinatown or FAO Schwartz by the park - Two-fold cause my birthday was a week after Halloween and it was both getting halloween costume supplies AND test marketing b-day toys.

Nov 7 - The Actual Bday - again cousins in Astoria...and once, I think, roaming the halls of Nat. History Museum...with the leafy park there, the old buildings, and TR’s statue out front, it’s possibly my favorite group of blocks on the planet.

Thanksgiving - Parade watching or pre-parade watching all the balloons get inflated in the freezing night air...Big bright neon caricatures illuminating the dark of Central Park West and the History Museum.

Christmas - the shop windows rolling over to showcase the extravagance of excess and snow snow snow...i know it's not 'fall' but all fall you get inundated with Xmas propaganda about how how tied to NYC the holiday is...movies that take place there seem to cement that notion. it's practically a City Holiday that the rest of the free world has adopted. so growing up in the shadow of this Christmas-laden goliath was kind of myth-making. Santa was more tangible, 'miracles' (whatever those were) were easier to swallow on 34th Street or beyond, and the air just tasted like snow.

so the fall has always been this month by month and event filled build up to winter. there was always something to look to, something to circle on a calendar, something to prepare for. i miss some of that. it's still ever present, but it's not the same without all those places and those people.

I’m jealous of you Gothamites.

...but I got a small taste of it last night. just for a minute the air was there, the sound of the wind was there, the leaves fell and gave the air just a hint of winter.



go out and enjoy that city of yours. keep her safe for me.