I quite like Santa Fe in fall, although I can't describe it too well because I don't get out much. It hasn't got the elaborate changing colors of Maryland, but leaves still fall, and brown seed pods, and the wind still blows them around, making a delightful whispering swish. The sunlight becomes more noticably slanted, as though it were filtered through water, casting an ambient glow rather than the shocking search-light quality it has in springtime, or the beating waves of light and heat in the summer. I could do without the chamisa, though; it's mostly done blooming now, I guess, because my eyes no longer feel like they're being squeezed with a hot lead vise, but I've still got a useless cough and raspy lungs. The rainy season is mostly over now, but the air often feels like a storm has just passed through and cleared things up. There is a lingering summer heat wave, noticable but thankfullly not overwhelming. At night I wish the mountains would cease their vigil so they could step down into the flat southern part of town, maybe huddle around a campfire and roast the remaining tourists, sparks simmering and flickering in the black around them, and tell me stories that would explain everything I always wanted to know.

I've been reading Iliads, comparing them with the Greek often, wondering why I care so much but trying still, uselessly, to catch a bit of meaning with some tweezers, draw it through the air and snap it out of the book like stubborn sinew clinging to bone, and maybe pin it to my wall like a trophy. I'd make a little plaque commemorating myself: Greg finally got it. Anne's starting school in just two days now, because there was a last minute opening in the Fall Freshman class. I think I'll go through the seminar with her, at least, and perhaps that way finally get away from the lingering feeling that I missed everything, maybe understood broadly some of the philosophy and learned to read Greek passably along with a translation, and French reasonably well, understood most of the math and some of the science, and fell down like a bitch in the ring with religion and literature. Why am I afraid that I didn't understand the Greek plays? Why do I still think that attempting to understand is the right approach?