Autumn is here in Tallahassee. Have I already told you that? It feels like I have. Maybe because I keep thinking about autumn, and how different it feels when you’re far away from the place you’ve been before.
It’s strange, because I have spent many autumns in new places, but this autumn feels different, knowing I’ll be in Tallahassee for several years. Knowing that this autumn will be one of many. Right now, I am sitting inside the sheer embrace of the screened-in back porch. The sun inches itself to apes, winking through the branches of the giant trees in our backyard. I’ve tried to identify the trees. One is a kind of maple. The broad, green leaves of the other two are subtly different, and one of the trees is bearing clusters of little round fruit, each gathered like tiny bouquets on its branches. Giants lengths of ropy kudzu hammock themselves across an expanse of blank space; its leaves are turning yellow.
In this place the daytime temperatures climb into the eighties, but unlik…
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