Winter In Summer In Autumn in anticlimatic

September used to be a decidedly Autumn month, though it hasn’t been so in at least 10 years now. I am officially letting Summer adopt it.

There’s this great scene really early on in Titanic when old Rose is looking at water logged images of the door from the promenade to the dining room and is assaulted with a sudden flash of memory. The way it’s executed in the film is a perfect reflection, in my opinion, of exactly how it feels to have a long neglected memory bubble rapidly to the surface after being triggered by something. For rose, it’s a half second image of a man in company uniform smiling at her, and opening the door, complete with atmosphere and violin and the pleasant din of the crowd. A full, ripe memory that doesn’t know how long it’s actually been since it was present reality, having been preserved in stasis for such a long spell. For a second it’s almost like it just happened yesterday rather than 84 years ago.

Tonight was a beautiful night for a ride. I took myself to the college- a place I hadn’t been inside of in 15 years or more- and was circling one of the main classroom buildings when I came to a rear door. This doorway was elevated from the rest of the campus, which spilled slowly down a great hill that the southern buildings were built into. Beyond this back door was a stretch of walkway on a plateau, flanked with benches, and steps leading down in all directions.

I paused there, on this balmy 75 degree night in September- and suddenly the entire scene twisted into a winter blizzard. The campus in all directions became a black and white moonscape, mostly dark, except under the large floodlights way up high- fighting the good fight against the dark, but losing almost all of their light to cones of intense flurries. It was the only place you could see the snow falling or blowing- those cones of light. I could smell it. I could feel the wind on my neck. I heard a door open. I saw Jilly Bean and Gary walk out with school bags and begin attempting to light cigarettes with their faces buried in the crack of the door.

One second. Two at most. Then I was back here, in this green paradise instead. Those are genuinely days I do not miss. Anguishing away at college despite hating every aspect of it. No idea what to do with life. Terrified of looking into the future, or laying claim to any path that might exclude others. It really is the not knowing that’s the hardest. The worst. The wrestling with yourself, and beating yourself up. Once you finally decide, though- that’s when everything finally gets good.