Often I yearn for campus

Fall, nostalgia, νόστος, ἄλγος

Yesterday marked the first beautiful fall afternoon here in New York City. The brutal, and frankly, absolutely revolting humidity of late August and early September has finally broken, and the air feels clear and dry. The quality of the light is ever-so-slightly different now than it was in August, a bit yellower, with steeper shadows.

In September, the city feels like a fresh notebook, and there’s pretty much nothing I love more than a fresh notebook (Leuchtturm1917, 120g paper, off-white, dot grid, black cover; I literally tremble at the potential). Fall is the season for fresh notebooks, fresh air, fresh haircuts, fresh fits. That’s the “back on campus” feeling. When that feeling hits—and I should say, it’s not just fall, watching the first snow while languishing in bed with a novel does the trick, too—I feel an urge to do one of two things: buy a bunch of books I will probably never read for a syllabus I made up in that very moment, or fire up my fountain pen and kind of go off. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I write with a fountain pen. I’m that kind of person, and honestly, I’ve come to terms with it. This should come as no surprise as I also carry a briefcase, which a waitress referred to, just two nights ago, as “sexy business,” much to my tremendous relief. Someone gets it, I thought to myself. Maybe I’m not so terribly alone in this life.)

To me, “campus” is about as perfect as a place can be, though, of course, I don’t miss everything about it. I don’t miss drinking jungle juice or begging to borrow my friends’ bandage dresses and heels for some fraternity date party where I would inevitably go back and forth with a group of what are essentially drunk children, quoting American Psycho. (“Don’t wear that outfit again.”) I distinctly remember a moment during my Sophomore year—I was between sips of lemonade Four Loko in a rotten fraternity basement—and I thought to myself, “Alright, so how much longer are we all going to do this, really?”