To Fill the Fall Air

My room is filled with books. I've spent my life writing. And yet, when I find myself facing a simple requirement of a 300-word post, my mind freezes. I'm terrified I won't be able to create in academic terminology what they are looking for. If you ask me to describe, to feel, to experience, to express in words the blink of a moment, that I can do.

I hurried into the building, blowdryer in one hand, phone & keys in the other. I'd parked in the disabled parking space temporarily, even though I knew I shouldn't, but it was private property so I figured 3 minutes wouldn't make a difference. I found her room on the ground floor, knocked loud enough so she could hear, then handed her the appliance through the cracked door.

Deciding to take the back door out since it was closer to where I'd parked, I found myself stopping my rapid pace to descend the steps slowly. It was dark and I didn't want to twist an ankle or stumble. The door had thrown me out into the fall air, though, and I inhaled as deeply as I could. I was searching for something. A scent of yesterday, perhaps. Smoke from burned cookies in a microwave, a man's cologne, Soft Scrub from when the ants invaded my old studio apartment, the heater's coils. There was nothing.

Only the feel of hard packed dirt beneath my sandals as I fought gravity to make it up the little hill to the right. I knew that dark hill; I had rushed up it many a night from my front porch to reach the safety of the streetlights. I instinctively ducked to miss the low-hanging branches of the tall shrub, though those branches were now well-trimmed. My sandals slipped, but I had moved rapidly enough to make it to the top before I slid.

As the keys turned and I opened my car door, mourning the scents of forgotten memories, I brightened at the thought that came to comfort. It was fall. I would create new memories. This was how life went.