I often feel sad after a party, but content after a funeral. Does that say something about me?

May be masochism. Maybe something a bit more sublimated. May be a sign of acceptance, which I’ve heard tell is a part of good mental health.

Maybe I just like to act the contrary.

But once a final farewell ceremony (most cultural versions apply) is done and over with, there lingers something of a relief. Though that may be heavier displayed towards the less tragic ends. Folks who pass after a good, full life. The final step and sigh of a journey. Right to the edge of the biological limit.

This may not be applicable to more tragic circumstance. Or at the very least, would require more time.

Anyway.

I was a bit day-drunk wandering around Manhattan yesterday. Only for a short while. Though, it does speak the language of a younger man’s days. You know, singular piano jazz type of days. Where it be so easy to think of the warmth elsewhere in time, while you pull your cheap jacket closer towards your heart.

Autumn in New York- why does it seem so…

Inviting? In ways, but not to the lonely soul among the millions. For all the millions of us there likely be. More people are inside when the weather turns, which allows the lost and lonesome to roam free. Or freer, rather. We get to stare at the tall, cold steel and concrete as it bends the wind to burn the skin surrounding eyes that can remember wanting more. Not worried whether someone sees us staring.

Dreamers with empty hands sigh for exotic lands, or what have you. How ever the song goes.

And the ghosts,

with which

you used

to dance-

still

haunt the floor

That one is me. Interpreted from the post afternoon of big Styrofoam draft beers, train ride north scribblings. I wonder exactly where I was going with it. But oh, doesn’t it sound autumnal?

I’ve built a dependency upon this time of year. Well, I build dependencies on all the other seasons, as well as anything else I can get my hands on- but the fall is profound towards development. ‘Tis easily forgotten that from the bones of the old, comes the new. And that something must be shed for the sake of internal progress. And how nice of the good mother nature to give us a vibrant display of symbolism?

Well, only if you live near I. Or in another place where the leaves shift shade before they die.

And she gives us a promise. A whisper. That it shall return for thee, and bolder than ever. Which is nice and all. But it doesn’t have to be a lie for it to not be true.

So, what is there for me to shed?

Plenty. More than I’ll go into, out of consideration for time and word constraints, in addition to the sensitivity of the material. Besides, while the change external may be a sight for open eyes, the molting toward evolution of the soul is centrally based. Change of the self comes from the self, even when outside assisted.

And need only start from shaving away. The reconstruction would only begin in the dead of winter. Sounds grim, but is far from it.

Shambling around Midtown, I thought of a trip I’d taken last year. While also dreaming of a trip made near a decade ago. And all the ones in between. While the train leads the newest me back home. As it has done before. And the memories follow as shadow- behind and in mind but not within hand’s reach.

This time of year works well for me. Sadness need not resemble madness. And madness be more justified as days grow shorter. And I’ll make use of all the symbols to re-invent this self. Whilst likely not changing too much at all.