smells like autumn michaelmas - part of the title of an email that reached me on Friday. The word reminds me of the feeling I had when I used it for the first time consciously four years ago. The first term of the academic year at the LSE is called Michaelmas Term. Going back to school, new classes, books, stable routine of the rythm of lectures, searching for material in the library, hot toast and tea in study breaks with Dama in our charmingly crappy house in King's Cross, London and its mysterious darkness as days shorten rapidly.
I am not going back to classes, even though I feel like I should, same feeling as last year. Moreover, I am living in a place that knows no seasons, so I am missing out on watching leaves turn yellow, red, brown, picking up chestnuts and keeping them in my coat pockets to play with.

But amazing Colombia presented its Autumn to me this weekend: I spent two days camping in the wilderness of Parque Chicaque with its mystic "Cloud Forest" south of Bogotá. Constant beautiful fog formations quiver up the mountain, trees reach out for clouds and pull them down, llamas look on over soundless open spaces. We climed up and down mountain paths, relaxed on a wooden terrace overlooking a green valley, observed a busy hummingbird, and protected the bag with our food from a herd of hungry horses.  ¶ 3:21 AM