nostalgia.

No hyperbole can properly express to what extent I adore fall. The sleazy, raunchy, naked sexiness of summer is replaced by a far more subversive, turtlenecked allure. I look forward to driving fast with the widows down, letting in the crisp, crackly-leafed air rather than thick, exhaust perfumed stew. Curling up under thick feather covers. Apple cider and beers you can’t see through. Fresh energy as a new crop of students burst with potential for amazing projects and material combinations not yet explored.

All my life I have been a part of academia and for those in education, our seasons are reversed a bit from the norm – Fall is our Spring, our season of freshness, hope and rebirth. Welcoming seventy-five hopeful graduate students who are about to have some of the most memorable days fills me with the most cliche nostalgia for when I did the same exact thing, six years ago. Tomorrow, 09.09.99 is the day I left the comfort, familiarity and security of the East coast to come to the much maligned area of Detroit.

I cried the whole way.

The universe works in very strange ways. Paths cross and opportunities wax and wane. Rarely is anything worth doing easy, and through it all - all of the whining, complaining, struggle, self-examination and one hell of a lot of learning - six years later, I take back those tears, shed in a fourteen hour ride, a third of the way across the country with my dad and all my earthly possessions crammed in the back of my truck (that still carts me around to this day.)

I wouldn’t change a thing.