what's worse than an entire day of pouring rain? how about an entire day of pouring rain harnessed by a relentless, ravaging wind? pretty much. yeah, welcome to my new home...

home. wow. this is where i live. again. weird.

so, fall showed up about a week back, and temperatures have been dropping daily ever since. it's a welcome change from the 'perma-summer' that pays its rent in southern california, as i count experiencing Actual Legitimate Definable Seasons as part of my rich cultural experience while living out here. fall. cooler temps, darker days, and tangible, visual cues from nature herself that winter is patiently waiting behind the scenes for the next act to start. it means cooler mornings in my apartment, making showers seem extra warm and enjoyable. it means afternoons full of chilly breezes and gusty blasts, tumbling about leaves and snatching loose papers from unsuspecting patrons. and, it means that halloween is nearly ripe, building momentum week by week, until darkness quietly settles in on the 31st day.

halloween. it still is a magical word, but it also used to be a magical event. now, it's just piles and piles of moments and memories of growing up in the glimmering sparkles of childhood. it was being young, and counting down the weeks and days and hours and minutes before assualting your unsuspecting neighborhood; it was having an actual, written strategy of how to get so much candy as to have the ability to make yourself sick long past turkey leftovers; it was coming back home, mid-mission, to unload your weighty plunder and depart once again stocked with a fresh, and empty, (yet sturdy) pillowcase; and it was hiding candy deep in the recesses of your costume, where mom and dad would never know, and having what you would call your 'secret stash,' with the giddy perk to go to it at all hours of the day or night.

i don't remember when i stopped trick or treating. i don't even remember all the costumes i put on over the years. but i do remember walking on that uneven sidewalk, a flashlight in my right hand and a pillowcase in my left. i remember sometimes being alone and sometimes being with a friend (but mostly, i remember, i was alone). and i remember that buzzed, tingly feeling of freedom and joy: being a kid, on halloween night, and knowing everyone else wished they were a kid again, hoping to experience what i was experiencing. the magic of halloween seems to reside in fleeting moments of time only truly experienced by youth. no grownup even gifted with the spirit of youth could ever pull that door open again.

those were good times, and they will always remain good times. i beheld that magic; sitting here i can almost taste the candy. but, these days, it will never go stale, and it will never make me sick. forever fresh, and always within reach. all i could ever ask for.

jonathan.


hey everyone, i'm back over here. and you're way over there. i'd love to hear how things are going. drop me a quick note sometime. and enjoy your october.