Beginnings of Fall and other ramblings

Josh Cummings
Sep 2, 2018 · 2 min read

God, let these summer nights chill. I feel it finally, after weeks of sweating in this east coast humidor, this ocean thick air, this suffocating warmth! Oh, I feel the Fall breathing its cool air down my shirt on this Friday midnight joy ride past the stoop bopping hip hop and the kindly looking gentlemen swooning to salsa from his little speaker. Fireworks crackle across the neighborhood. The city; alive. Every little human set up for the night, with their friends, with their lovers, with their own peaceful solitude. Rats scamper through the light of lampposts. Moths flutter at the side porch lights, surely feeling the press of Fall. It is all quite charming, I’m starting to see. What is it that I fear here? Only myself, I suppose.

Money, oh money. I never used to talk about you and think best to ignore you. But here I am, wholly searching for you, looking longingly for some secret to your heart again. I sell my things on the internet, I interview for the death-of-a-man’s-soul kinda job, I cling to your possibilities! All in pursuit of you! It is senseless really, but it sure sounds nice. Sadly, I’m afraid, it seems that worrying about money is now a more human emotion than the forever ago worrying about becoming another creatures food. Different though, in that it is so widespread among humanity to suffer a significant concern with money despite the truth that we have created it! Perhaps this is why I loved Wyoming: I worried less about money and more about Grizzly bears.

But anyways, when I see my life through a lens of gratitude, I can feel so blatantly that I am not alone here and the rest will come with time. I spent the night with people that I love and it made the whole city feel more special, more beautiful. I love these city blocks and all of my insecurities that hide in its alleyways. I can feel the appreciation as the breeze in my face and in the quiet vibration of my bike against pavement.

At the end of the night, on my bike again, I chased a tow truck just to see if I could keep up. When the man driving noticed me pedaling ferociously in his rear view mirror he waited up and he pulled me along in his pocket of air. When we reached a stop light, he rolled down his window to talk to me, and my goodness, I realized how much love is out here in this world. He said I was going twenty-six miles per hour.

Josh Cummings

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