it is warm and snowing yellow-orange leaves. it is whiny the pooh and the blustery day. it is the quiet after the song is through. it is smiling at strangers crossing the street and their smiling back at me. families putting their beds to rest at the community garden. and enormous, furry poodles. and flocks that look like swifts, but no chapman chimney in sight. it is strangers who, from behind, look like all the people you love and miss and the warmth that thought brings. it is the thought of a bowl of french onion soup on halloween night and the hope of frost. and simultaneous laughing and crying...and that everything is exactly as it should be.