I've almost gotten through the whole season without appreciating this verbally: my favorite experiences of autumn are connected to dead, dried, fallen leaves. I've heard other people say, for them, it's the pumpkins, but I love the leaves. I am living again in a city that is sumptuous with trees. And in our part of town, the trees are taller than the buildings; the limbs are longer and sprawl wider than a man.

My greatest autumn thrill is to ride my bike through the leaves that snap and shutter in the street gutter like the sound of a sprinkler system in its first moments of starting up. The swirling, undulating leaves moving along the length of an empty street fills my body with enough space to calm down. The fragile, rallying masses of leaves on a breezy afternoon push forcefully against the traffic of a crowded street; it electrifies my body, pulls me outside of my busy, chaotic head: rioting leaves, suspended thoughts.

We've received our first two snow storms of the season, the first of which broke many leaf-heavy branches around town. The second storm made everything officially cold with no further hope for prolonged summer-to-autumn warmth. Fall is over, even if winter isn't certifiable for another month and a half. Snark has cleverly repurposed the crock pot to fit our turning-toward-winter desires: hot tea on demand, all day long and evening. Sometimes leftover apple cider mixed in too. Cinnamon sticks. Cloves.

I realize I haven't really said anything about my new life: serving in a non-profit for the next ten months through AmeriCorps, one month already down. It feels like I am mired in that mob of battered leaves that moves sideways with untamed momentum through the street. I am caught up in it, overwhelmed. It's difficult to work my way out of the velocity-of-the-moment to reflect, to reach out, to create other meaningfully-directed-moments. It will take me to the end, to the tired place where leaves and trash pile-up against a curb. I am exhausted.

I am happy too.

I love the people I work with: their ease of humor and reverence for delicious food.

Also, with my position at the Education and Life Training Center, it seems every week I meet a person from another nonprofit. By the end of a conversation there is yet another place I want to volunteer. Partners Mentoring Youth. SAVA. One month in, overworked and weary, but already devising ways to make more time for this to happen.