Hands.

Long, wiry bones meet tiny, stubby ones
One shaking in anticipation, one not noticing
One covered in oil, grease, and dirt
And the other never separated from its pen.

Shy and nervous and oblivious and indifferent
A year of sitting back and waiting for the right time
Remaining distant, scared of contact
Of screwing it up before it begins.

Palms meet, fingers entwine
Thumbs wrestle in nervous excitement
The sweat of the nerves goes unnoticed
In the sweetness of the touch.

The shakes eventually dissipate
The nerves focus attention on new things
Distance is never significant
And if it was, Time took care of the rest.

Time grew, attitudes evolved
Proximity became a right, not a gift
Possession sought value over intimacy
And shakes began once more.

What once brought warmth becomes unwelcome
The comforting becomes invasive
The once oblivious stands startled and guarded
While the once nervous becomes far too confident.

A line is drawn, and distance is brought back
Fingers disentangle, palms separate
The piano hands go back to playing mechanic
And the writer returns to her pen.

C'est l'automne maintenant.

"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall." -F. Scott Fitzgerald

When I woke up this morning, the sky still reflected the grey of last night's storm, and I put the chill wind I felt down to the rain as well. I spent nearly six hours in a run-down IUPUI School of Nursing classroom lit by fluorescent lights, with windows of sunlight behind me that I never saw.

And when I stepped outside, already high from the liberation of knowing one more step to college was completed, I was blinded for a moment by actual sunlight. Not the filtered crap that comes through the  meurtrières that pass as windows in my school or the horrible yellow rays that reflect off the buses around my high school parking lot, but real sunlight. I'd forgotten the impact real sunlight has on the colors of the world. This strange, in-between season has brought the rain the summer lacked, and the weeks of storms have returned the green to the world. The trees looked as if they were stretching, waking up not from the death of winter but instead of summer, their green returning for a few weeks before the world turned to fire again. The grass was freshly wet, the soil beneath especially brown; even the buildings were more vibrant. Suddenly, the stop lights and road signs that had been the only source of color for the summer seemed dull and fake.

The air was still crisp--I don't believe it ever passed 68 degrees today--and I realized that it wasn't the storm making the world cool and beautiful. It was impending autumn. It may only be the beginning of September, but I can already sense October.

I can smell the bonfires, feel the warmth of the heat on my face and the chill of the night air on my neck. I can taste dried maize and pumpkin seeds; I hear the laughter of my friends as we wander through parks, trying to accurately capture the beauty of the world around us and just falling short. I can see the beauty of nature, the way the seasons really affect the world.

I can feel the impending nervousness of college, the rush and struggle to get our final test scores and fill out the right applications and appear the best we possibly can in order to avoid life-long student debt. I can feel the pull of youth, the beginnings of our last-ditch efforts to go outside and explore this world while we're eighteen, to take spontaneous roadtrips to however far away one tank of gas is, the haunting realization that this is our last chance to really screw up and not have it count.

C'est l'automne maintenant. And for once, l'automne may be winning my affections over le printemps.

Goals.

I'm going to start posting here more often. Longer things, probably, so not like every day, but just when I have something to say.

I'm going to catch up on my line-a-day journal.

I'm going to finish my quote Bible.

I'm going to finish the story I haven't named yet, but that might be tackled in November, because I'm bad at new ideas.

Yep. That's all I've got for now.

The empty set is a subset of all other sets.

This is one of those situations in which I've stared at the screen for a long time trying to figure out a way to put my day into words, but I can't seem to find the right ones.

In summary:

• Objective achieved.
• I'm sorry, but I just don't understand.
• I cannot wait to meet you.
• Fuck set theory.