Landed in KC and took a cab to my hotel. Along the way I looked at the trees, most of them turning, their leaves bright orange and deep yellow, and it brought me all the way back to my childhood in NY where I lived with real autumn and with leaves turning every year and as I rode along in the taxi I felt — really felt — how much I loved my childhood, my family together, my mom and dad young and healthy, my sister and brother and I in the same little apartment in Brooklyn, everyone loving each other and the world outside — I didn’t go far — was whole, exactly as it needed to be, the schoolyard and the playground and the street, always games, always kids to play with. That’s what the leaves made me think of.