64 Crayola Days

Around a month ago, I wrote this with the intention of posting it. Better late than never...

In the waning days of this Indian Summer, I am clawing at the doors and windows to be outside.
The past month has been a phenomenal displays of the earth's beauty. Desperately trying to fight off the onset of Winter, I spend every waking moment outdoors. The crisp Autumnal air wakes me in the morning and lulls me to sleep at night. Between the moments between the sheets, I find myself walking everywhere. 2 miles?!? No problem!

In the passing weeks of writing this, the weather has changed, and in an instant, the shorts and sandals have disappeared, given way to the scarfs and long coats of a different season, of a different life. Winter has begun to set in, as the colors have faded and fallen from the trees. The pomp and flare has too faded from that was once boasted in how the people passing by. Now sniffling, slouched or cinched, the people scurry; the marching stride has been lost.

The crisp air served as life's "Built in sharpener", making the normal colors more brilliant, more noticeable, more fascinatingly distinct... to a point that I can only call them 64-Color Crayola days. These technicolored days are especially intense on the ideal autumn days, where cool air meets clear skies. The sunlight beams through the leaves, and as if it were a prism, a myriad of colors suddenly lift out canvas of your periphery.

Banal becomes beautiful in how the trees that line your block no longer edge the grey with green. Leaves now outlined in "Burnt Orange" and shaded with "Yellow-Green", "Peach" and still a small number of "Pine Green", push out like a pop-up book against the "Cadet Blue" sky. Late blooming flowers display colors of "Orchid", "Apricot" and "Bittersweet". In the last days, the dying leaves turn "Thistle", "Burnt Sienna", finally... brown.

With the anti-climatic resolution of the season, leads to desolute feelings of cold.

Here comes winter. Here comes the cold.

Life of Fly

Traveling every week for work, I often feel like my life is being robbed from me 4 days at a time. I spend 4/7 of my week away from home. Home, too, is a funny word, being that I just moved this past Sunday. Feeling the fatigue of that move, I was in a rush to the airport on Monday. Having performed this routine more than I'd care to admit, I get through security in record time to grab an iced coffee before boarding my flight. The flight attendant hurries me to my seat and closed the door behind me. In dire need of a jolt, I stab the straw into my coffee, and as I do so, a fly lands on my arm. My world stops.

This fly somehow made its way from whatever trashcan it was born in, flew into the airport, then down the jetbridge, and onto the airplane! This NYC fly unknowingly flew onto a flight, a flight that willl take him away from his family for the rest of his life. The thought of that made me question the lifespan of a fly. When I looked it up when I got to work, a sense of mourning overcame me. The fly only has 2 days to live.

The world spun and I questioned how I would live my life if I only had 2 days. A whole series of "what if's" flood my brain. Procreation is an obvious thought in a mere 48 hours, but rational thoughts of the normal size housefly and the amount of time that it would require to add the mass from infant to adult fly. Further research was necessary. A different source listed more info: "Predators and other factors reduce it down to 2 days, otherwise in a safe environement a fly can live 8 days to 2 months, depending on the species."

2 lessons...
Live Life
&
Do your homework

Moving again

Another year has gone by, and it is time again to move aprtments. Starting my third year here in the New York area, I can't believe that time has flown by this quickly.

My first year in Jersey City seems like a distant memory, filled with exciting times like that of a freshman in his first few weeks of college. The alcohol, the sex, the delight, the endless conversations about infinite meaning of nothing; it all just went by in a blur of fond memories. The memories end abruptly though, with the yearning for more. Jersey City is definitely not New York City. The hours spent waiting on the PATH to cross under the Hudson; Manhattan was always just a breath away; it escaped me; it taunted me.

My second year in the Lower East Side is a jumbled year of emotions. There was an excitement to live with my college best friends again. We laughed and drew up grand memories, having learned from our first year like hubris-filled sophomores. The joy was muddled with the ups and downs of my chemotherapy. Life was enjoyed, and my yearning for a life in the city was thrown in full force. My days were filled with wandering through the streets and exploring what locals refer to as only "the city". The pure simplicity and bombastic attitude that Manhattan is so paramount in contrast to other cities delights me. Songs, movies, and literature describe the same feeling, but the attempts are never exact. Every moment that can be described as a "New York moment" is unique to the person living it; never can it be described with words spoke, sang
or written. The New York that exists in the hearts and minds of those people doesn't exist for everyone, but it does exist everyday.

My junior year approaches and 13th Street is now home. The neighborhood snob that I have become scoffs at the idea of living above 14th Street, and I grin at the fact that I can buy my groceries equally from Trader Joe's and the Saturday Green market. The transformation from fratastic boy to full-blown extra-hot, soy latte Green-wise New Yorker has been smooth despite the tremendous obstacles that were faced along the way. This next year is filled with hope; my life should only get better.

To borrow a phrase (and slightly tweek it) from Robert Frost: Life moves on.

Thanks for reading,
Brian

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." - RF