You change my heart, you change my mind, you change my life.
12. "Poison," Pablo Nouvelle featuring Tulliae, 2014.
Like some phantom temporal sensation left over from another life, I get this feeling around the end of August that it's early autumn. Mornings will have just a touch of sharpness in the air and I'll almost, almost need a light jacket outside after dark.
But none of it is true, not here. The feeling is just a leftover from Indiana. I've lived in North Carolina twice as long, but I've never become properly attuned to the seasons.
My first fall here, I sat outside a lot, just for the hell of it, charmed by the Indian summer. What I didn't realize is that it wasn't Indian summer, but the normal run of September through November in southeastern NC.
The second autumn, I reveled in the novelty of a warm Halloween, crickets on November evenings.
By the third one, I missed the changing leaves, their color, their crunch, their unsettling habit of scuttling down an empty street at night without warning. That smoky smell in the night air as November rolls into December is a rare thing here, the smell of cold in the dead of winter, the smell of dying greenery. Things don't slowly change here; they draw their lives out as long as possibly, then blow off into a soggy, brown mess during a cold rain in the night.
I try to go to the mountains once every autumn now, to remember what it's all really like. Even though I know the little, old house I live in will be miserably cold when it cools off outside, even though I love those November crickets, even though I live for the blazing heat of summer, I guess I need to know that fall is waiting at the end of it all.
Someone called this song "the dance track to your sadness," a striking description. Certainly, it's the melancholy soundtrack to the promise of an autumn that Wilmington never quite keeps.
Sunrise in the fall has a very different feel to it.
Otter Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, VA.
Adam and Brendan expected me not to cross them. Don't show me stepping stones across water and expect me NOT to cross them.
Otter Lake.
More mountain views, courtesy of Brendan.
Fog rolling over the mountains.
The view from a Tail of the Dragon overlook near the NC/TN border.
Unfortunately, PhotoBucket wouldn't let me save this photo any larger. Those big letters spray painted across the guard rail read in full, "I LUV U, THOUGH I CAN'T SAY YOUR NAME, BUT SOON THAT WILL ALL CHANGE. --TKK, 9/23/07" In the years since, the graffiti has faded to the point of being illegible, but that's always what I think of at that overlook.
Click to viewLike some phantom temporal sensation left over from another life, I get this feeling around the end of August that it's early autumn. Mornings will have just a touch of sharpness in the air and I'll almost, almost need a light jacket outside after dark.
But none of it is true, not here. The feeling is just a leftover from Indiana. I've lived in North Carolina twice as long, but I've never become properly attuned to the seasons.
My first fall here, I sat outside a lot, just for the hell of it, charmed by the Indian summer. What I didn't realize is that it wasn't Indian summer, but the normal run of September through November in southeastern NC.
The second autumn, I reveled in the novelty of a warm Halloween, crickets on November evenings.
By the third one, I missed the changing leaves, their color, their crunch, their unsettling habit of scuttling down an empty street at night without warning. That smoky smell in the night air as November rolls into December is a rare thing here, the smell of cold in the dead of winter, the smell of dying greenery. Things don't slowly change here; they draw their lives out as long as possibly, then blow off into a soggy, brown mess during a cold rain in the night.
I try to go to the mountains once every autumn now, to remember what it's all really like. Even though I know the little, old house I live in will be miserably cold when it cools off outside, even though I love those November crickets, even though I live for the blazing heat of summer, I guess I need to know that fall is waiting at the end of it all.
Someone called this song "the dance track to your sadness," a striking description. Certainly, it's the melancholy soundtrack to the promise of an autumn that Wilmington never quite keeps.
Sunrise in the fall has a very different feel to it.
Otter Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, VA.
Adam and Brendan expected me not to cross them. Don't show me stepping stones across water and expect me NOT to cross them.
Otter Lake.
More mountain views, courtesy of Brendan.
Fog rolling over the mountains.
The view from a Tail of the Dragon overlook near the NC/TN border.
Unfortunately, PhotoBucket wouldn't let me save this photo any larger. Those big letters spray painted across the guard rail read in full, "I LUV U, THOUGH I CAN'T SAY YOUR NAME, BUT SOON THAT WILL ALL CHANGE. --TKK, 9/23/07" In the years since, the graffiti has faded to the point of being illegible, but that's always what I think of at that overlook.