fall [perceptions of the perceived]

I spoke too soon the other day about a never-ending-summer. A few nights ago the air started to be, I don't know, not necessarily crisp but definitely that sort of fresh air that carries the smell of pre-cold and pre-snow (though pre-snow would be overkill in Tuscany). And one morning I woke up and it was crisp. For the first time I noticed how cold the glass had grown overnight and I brought my blanket with me out of bed.
It feels like fall, like it inevitably feels like fall every year. It feels like fall when jackets turn muted colors with the occasional pop of red. It feels like fall when the idea of holiday seems plausible. It feels like fall when I notice the shadows of leaves, oils staining the cement momentarily on the spots where they have fallen, like they are falling in love with the ground.
It feels like fall when I feel the way I feel every fall - when I fall into that equilibrium of everything speeding up and everything slowing down. It's a wonderful purgatory of being so excited for the moment but also knowing there are countless moments past the current. And all of a sudden you're Psyche and you're invincible, just at the start of the season. [Winged] Victory over the future.
I felt this way every fall as a kid, this feeling of possibility, and wondered when the fall would come where I would feel old enough to take advantage of this sense. I remember thinking at seven and eight and definitely nine that when I was ten I would feel so much older - ten was when my age would be two numbers, not just one. But then I was ten and I felt just the same. If anything, it was mundane, for almost everyone has a two digit age, and I knew even at the beginning of my two digit stage that not many people get to three. I decided when I was thirteen I would feel so much older. And then I thought it would happen when I was fifteen and then sixteen and soon I stopped thinking about it all together. And though I thought about it no more, I am sure any sense of the feeling eluded me at seventeen as well.
Suddenly, I was eighteen. I was eighteen with still an air of seventeen, and conscious of it. I think now I was unsure of what parts of myself I wanted to keep and what parts of myself I wanted to change, and I couldn't fully move up until I decided. Even more suddenly, I was nineteen. I was nineteen with still an air of....lifetimes past. By now I felt I could accurately describe and catalogue what were before abstract things like emotions and relationships. I had loved and pushed myself emotionally. I had my heart broken and had been pushed by others emotionally. In all senses. And I kept living. And then I was twenty. I am twenty and no longer have any idea what age I am. I am alone in Europe, trying vainly with countless others to live the life of an artist. Or, more simply, to live life organically. Living by feeling.
I am living finally by the feeling I feel every fall. I can't say this was the feeling I was chasing at seven and eight and definitely nine, but I feel that it's close. And I am Winged. And I am Flying.