It's autumn in New York
That brings the promise of new love...
...
They had spent the day in Shakespeare Garden in Central Park. It was September...several years ago. He had just finished his first week of grad school at Columbia. She had come back two weeks before from a vacation in Hawaii with her girl friends. This was their first time hanging out in about a month.
They sat in the park for hours, talking about everything and nothing. He tugged her ponytail playfully.
"Your hair got lighter. Must've been all that sun you got." He smiled at her.
He went on to talk about a girl he had started dating at Columbia. Former model, beautiful, smart, had her shit together, blah blah blah. Everything she was not. She felt a stabbing at her heart with every positive thing he kept saying about her. Already, she admired her and hated her at the same time. Ugh.
Just a few months earlier, she was spending July 4th with him. A few months earlier, she would go out for a beer with him at Peter McManus and then end up talking until 2 am in the morning outside on a dirty Manhattan street. A few months earlier, he had been telling her how he wanted to go out with her if she did not have a boyfriend.
And now...this? How quickly he was smitten with another. Boys are fickle.
Oh whatever. What did she expect, anyway? She had a boyfriend. And while their relationship was not perfect and there were many ways they did not fit, it was working out.
"So," he said to her as if reading her mind, "how are things going with that boyfriend you're never gonna marry?"
He had a way of saying infuriating things without entirely pissing her off, but just enough to get under her skin. Ten years later, she would later learn to love (and also sometimes detest) his ability to just say whatever shit came to his mind.
"Why do you say I'm never gonna marry him?
"Because," he said, "I asked you a few months ago and you said you didn't think so."
That's not exactly how she remembered it. "I never said I wasn't going to marry him. I actually don't even know if I ever want to get married," she told him.
He chuckled. "Yeah you do."
"I do? " Suddenly he knew her better than she knew herself? "Do YOU ever want to get married?"
He nodded.
She didn't want to ask if former-model-Columbia-grad-student-perfect girl was the one. Because she didn't want to know the answer. She kind of felt sick.
But...she had a feeling, though, the story of them wasn't over yet.
Because, if it was...he wouldn't have been sitting in Central Park with her that day. For four hours in the Autumn sun...when he could have been studying.
When he could have been with her.
And she could have been with someone else.
No, their story wasn't over.
It was just beginning.
...
I'm a summer girl, but...boy, do I love Autumn in New York.
It's also a great Jazz tune too. Check it out. Love the version by Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong.
Beautiful lighting, and nice to see the color coming alive already. I'll be heading upstate NY for my annual apple picking and photo tour later this month. Happy Sunday!
@adamj thanks, Adam. Upstate NY is sooooo beautiful this time of year, almost magical. Love apple picking too. Time to make apple pies :) I make a pretty damn good one too. Where do you go apple picking in upstate NY? So many places to do so....
@marcinsmok thanks! Actually I don't have one place in particular that I favor. A lot to choose from in Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess Counties. When I lived in Manhattan, anything not in the 5 boroughs and north of them was considered "upstate". However, if you really want to go to the TRUE Upstate NY (people in Upstate NY don't really consider Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess as part of upstate - it's still downstate to them) I'd say drive up further north to the Adirondacks during the Fall. Lake George and points north. Even venture into VT for the foliage. Soooo pretty! So many photo ops!
@fauxtography365 Thanks. I've been to Lake George many years ago and enjoyed it a lot. I have a friend in Putnam (Mahopac) and try to visit him often. I would love to see Letchworth State Park but it's so far from Brooklyn.
@roadshow I also like how blue and orange nicely contrast each other. Thanks for taking a look!