One autumn morning, here.

This morning Devon and I went out early because I had an appointment at the eye doctor so that I could get stressed out my eye tests (I appreciate that it's almost entirely noninvasive, but there's still something stressful about rapidfire questions and perception exams) and chose a new pair of glasses, and the autumn morning was as beautiful as one could ever wish from Corvallis: thick mist and dense grayblue sky and all the flame colors of the leaves. I wish I could show you what autumn was like here, because I can't adequately describe it. The mist blurs the edges of everything, it catches and holds the blue of the sky, it smudges and it tints—but no one does greenery like we do and so there's such flame in the dying leaves, so vibrant and so prevalent, crimsons and coppers and papery golds, glowing through the blue. It is subdued and colorful, soft and bold, it is like living in the heart of a painting, and—and I wish I could show you.


I took this outside my parent's house a few years back. It will have to do.
After the appointment we stopped for coffee, and I got a pumpkin mocha and wrapped its warmth in long sleeves and cold hands; I was wearing my Oregon Shakespeare Festival hoodie and a 60-some woman touched my elbow and told me she liked it, because I share my artsy fartsy demographic with a somewhat older crowd. I drank that and calmed down, and came home feeling wonderful. Just a few minutes ago I went to grab something from the kitchen and looked out the window above the sink to see a doe just outside the house, just twenty-some feet away, framed between two autumn-red bushes, grazing.

The new glasses will be half-rimmed wire in a color somewhere between burgundy and light brown.

Some things in my life are so very beautiful.