the weather became more pleasant all of a sudden, and this time of year is pregnant with excitement and the still-fresh experiences of just a year ago. though much of what had such effect then no longer factors in-- that once-in-a-lifetime starting college moving away feeling has passed, some of the people are gone, some new people have come forward-- the memories remain vivid, colourful, and almost overwhelming at times. that life must be lived multiple times over in realms of recollection in order to fully appreciate what was happening, the accompanying distortion of a "big picture" view making these thoughts bittersweet. almost enough to forget that there's also more importantly a now, a present, a current state informed and coloured by all that came before.

and what days those were: in october the longest day; september, the longest month. 2005. seriously, what a year. i could say that about almost any point of it but right about now (then) is when Everything Changed. the balance of 2006 already tips towards the end and i'm just now thinking fondly of the previous year. and the coming autumn is the best, the "lull between two punishing seasons," as haven kimmel wrote.

all of this conscious reminding, forced memories and sensations, trying to pick up a thread of what was, but it's all subtext. it's re-reading a book so loved at a previous time (some of that this summer for me) and finding, whether via delusion or providence, that you recognise circumstances and characters and sentiments you had interpreted differently the first time in your reading, and, further, that some of these things prefigured what happened to you afterwards. the temporary cult of the asterisk, dreams of a stadium, new orleans, kafka quotations, belle. so you get to thinking: is that just one of those awesome to realise but otherwise fruitless day-to-day coincidences, or did what now seems like a burning red flag once appear as just another string of words and subconsciously affect thought processes and decisions in that grand theatre of real life?

i'm moving into central a day early. monday. week from today. nervous anticipation of preparation abounds, but that's what it's all about. something actually happening.