8 Years In 8 Weeks: April 2014

Monday, April 14, 2014

November 5, 2008

I don't think I've ever met anybody in New York that was completely happy contained in the city. Everyone needs a break from here once in a while. A lot of people tend to take their breaks in Autumn, to go up state and see all the "Fall Foliage" that they can't get in the city. For a day, or a weekend, the world turns green and yellow and orange and red, and the ground is soft, and the air is sweet.

This is the first (and only?) time I left the city specifically to catch the leaves changing. Well, really we went apple picking. We went apple picking at a farm with an enormous picture of the third Terminator on the wall, because we went apple picking at a farm that happened to be owned by her parents. Small world.

We were a little late in the season so we had to really search for unransacked trees, but in the end I got enough to make several pies, and still keep doctors away for weeks.

Afterwards we went on a hike and ended up crossing into Massachusetts, stopping long enough to straddle two states on a dirt trail in the middle of the woods.

I always meant to go apple picking again, but it never happened. Fall always seemed to sneak up on me after the intense stress of my job in the summer. It always seemed like I was unwinding while people were making plans to go, and I couldn't be bothered to do any more planning ahead. The beginning signs of burnout, from there on forward.

But not in this picture. Here, I'm a hundred miles from the nearest skyscraper, sitting on a rock in front of a waterfall, smiling, and maybe a little high. Even though I don't really smoke.