Tea and figs

Since leaving school, seasons are not so clearly delineated. Suddenly it's fall and there will be no more barbecues this year and I have to figure out where I put all my non-summer clothes when I moved. I miss school for that "it is fall, it is time to buy binders" sense of purpose.

Had a strange moment the other day on a street corner waiting for the streetcar right across from where I went to high school. I had the physical memory of myself at 16. I felt willful and focused and determined not to fit others' expectations. I could almost taste that strange adolescent combination of feeling alienated from most of society and culture and yet distinctly a member of a community. It was actually fairly gratifying, if somewhat surreal.

I've always felt reflective on that era, even at the time, which I suppose has something to do with how unusual my alternative high school was, and not just now because I'm almost 30 (which is such a boring and arbitrary reason to be introspective).