Beautiful Fall Night

The campus was beautiful when I came out of the library at night. It was dark, mostly, with a bit of blue left in the sky. There was a lovely, bright crescent moon shining through thin, fast moving clouds - the lanterns were golden orbs reflected on the concrete, wet from the mist of sprinklers that emerged as the last students went on their way. It smelled like fall time.

I realized why the fall time here makes me sad - it's because fall and spring are about transition, and winter and summer are static. Because I've really only traveled during summer and winter before, and haven't felt like I was missing anything. The fall looks and smells and feels the same here as in Missouri, somehow, and it reminds me that I'm not in another dimension, that the year keeps rolling on, time keeps ticking past, there's a world I've left behind that is continuing without me. And I love the fall. It's hard to be away.