Fall Thoughts

This is, oddly enough, another picture from my time in Spain, but I chose to talk about this one for a different reason. Not because it reminds me of Spain, but because it reminds me of home. Here I am in Florida, this hot, humid, season-less state of sort of stagnant weather, while in my home state the weather has reached absolute perfection. I’m from Massachusetts, up in the Northeast where we are famous for the rich beauty of our autumn months. The days get crisp, tinted with a cold wind that smells like beauty and the sheer joy of the expressiveness of nature. The sun is hot for only a few hours a day, all the while that same wind tousles your hair and reminds you that it is worthwhile to be alive. The leaves change color, from green to yellow to orange to red, and as these changes manifest they fall to the ground as the blustery autumn winds give them new life, albeit short-lived, before they take their place on the ground where they crunch deliciously under children’s feet. I would love nothing more than to be at home right now, reveling in this distinctly and perfectly beautiful season that is my very favorite. This is all very poetic, but nature truly speaks to me, especially during this time of year. Why I moved to Florida, I’ll never know. I love it here, but I cannot help but miss every inkling of the weather back at home this time of year. Forget constant warmth and stagnancy; instead embrace the wild changing weather of the Northeast. There is something new every day, something beautiful every day. I am able to sometimes see that here as well, but fall break is making me terribly homesick, particularly because of the time of the year that it is.
Unfortunately, I am unable to go home this weekend for reasons that often strike me as silly, unfortunate, and infinitely frustrating – I don’t have the money.  Money seems to be the one constant in my existence, or rather, the lack of it. The idea that it is money that holds people (particularly young students in college) back just seems so wrong and so backwards to me. The younger generation is the future, and we need all the help we can get to succeed. And yet colleges all over the country cost more than I dare to imagine, and for whatever reason this country doesn’t feel the need to actually educate its young properly, in an affordable, successful way. Private colleges cripple young people for years and years after graduation. It simply does not make sense to me that a young person should be set up to experience the world by incurring tens of thousands of dollars worth in debt. What kind of life can possibly stem from those beginnings? But I am wayyy off track. I’m always intrigued by where my mind wanders when I just sit down and start writing the things I am thinking…
Moral of the story. I desperately miss fall and home and fires and delicious apple cider donuts, and America should pay for our education!
Thanks much.