The Smell of Autumn is Here

I can smell it.

Literally, in Les Baux, I can.

The air smells suddenly like autumn; days are getting shorter, the leaves turning gold, the grapes on the vines outside my window are becoming mostly raisins now.

We can all smell it globally too, and boy, do I not mean the weather.

We can hear it in the death-rattle of Republican National Convention speeches, all those croaky, spittle-mouthed ravings, all of the white-knuckled gasping of those who are losing their minds as the world moves in a more progressive, fair, direction.

And then, on the smaller level, of my own life, there is change in the air, too.

Some changes that are beautiful, but that I’m not yet willing to write about, publicly:)

And also some that I am: like, the fact that in exactly one weeks time, I will leave this rural mountain-top village that has became my home, board an airplane, and fly back to Berlin. For the first time since Before.

Berlin.

“Ah, back to your old life!” said a friend on the phone.

“ Nope. ” I said, truthfully. “ I may be going back to Berlin, but definitely not back to any old life. It does not exist anymore. Going foreward to something new and unfamiliar.”

On my bike home from town, today, I found wild baby pears by the side of the road.

They are crisp, bursting with flavor and a bit tart, almost like laced with citrus.

I’d never even heard of pears that tiny.

They surprised me.

I never liked surprises and that’s starting to change too.

I’ve decided it makes sense to expect life to surprise me, since it does anyway, and to actively throw my arms around it and welcome it home.