November Rain

I actually set out to write this post with a purpose in mind. I was preparing some thought-provoking reflections on cultural trends in my generation and the uselessness of statistics when your sample set is rotten. Well, forget it, the night is too peaceful, and I am too mellow to be direct and serious. I feel poetical.

I'm sitting on my apartment patio, listening to the cold November rain as it falls softly around me. It's a peaceful night, not nearly as dismal as it could be. With a sweatshirt and slippers to keep me warm, my laptop in front of me, and a beer by my side, I find that I have nothing more to wish for. I have to look past my screen to see the halos that ring the yellow streetlamps. There are no stars out tonight... of course there aren't; it's raining; they are all hiding behind a dark curtain, guarding their modesty from the prying eyes of the falling drops.

Strange that the changing of the seasons brings a rush of nostalgia with it. Is it always so? Or is it merely that I have no memories of winter in this new town, and so the gray and rainy nights recall other years and other places. This is not the torturous nostalgia I have had before. The itch to get up and go is not there. A warmth and contentment fills me. Perhaps it is only the beer. Perhaps it is the grace of peace. Perhaps it is the time I have spent with friends, especially this past week.... it's probably the beer, but I hope those others each have a part in it as well.

Some pleasant reflections of times gone by float through my mind, and I think of the toast we created so long ago...

"To first times, last times, and the times we never had."

From the recesses of my mind comes a strange mix of poetry:

Nothing lasts forever
Even cold November rain

Where you lead, I will follow
Anywhere, that you tell me to

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving in our eloquence
Another Auld Lang Syne