Perfect Moment: Why fall is the greatest of all seasons

I walk out of the lecture hall with my friend J, a lecture hall we haven’t been to before. It’s still early, maybe 11am. We walk down the cobblestone street between dark, mossy brick walls. We walk across a tiny road, my foot glides over the yellow center line - a line that seems ridiculous on a street that’s only five steps wide. I squint at the people going by on bikes and scooters.

In the distance a group of students is laughing, another one is strolling up a different street towards the Economics faculty. I turn around, and more students are coming towards my friend and I, more are walking away from us.

Everything lies under a bright misty morning sun; everything lies under a faded white light that somehow brightens and bates colors at the same time. Only at second glance do I realize that Maastricht is crawling with young, happy students. They seem installed in just the right places at all times, and the city always is so peaceful.

Before noon on a Wednesday, Maastricht is already active but it’s also still silent. It is so picturesque, so unreal, it’s like walking through a movie set or a museum. It’s like walking through someone’s dream of the perfect European city and when I turn around a corner and step into gum or stumble over an empty bottle, I realize how raw this city is; that it is here and that I am here and that the reality of it makes it even more of a dream.

Of all the places in the world, I think to myself, what were the chances that I would land here? How is this city so beautiful, every single day and especially on an early October morning? How is it so perfect, so very perfect in every sense of the word? And why don’t I know how to truly describe it all? This feeling of comfort, happiness, astonishment, heartache, pride, melancholy, and wanting-to-scream-out-loud all wrapped into one complex, paralyzing mix of emotions?

I’m always very alert when I am in Maastricht. Very awake, very attentive. Later during the day the mass of tourists and motor scooters and dogs and street musicians and buses and cars is going to be a spectacle but it’s still going to be just right in a different way than the peace of the cool morning. This city and its extreme, ever present beauty in the fall never exhausts me. I am never tired of it. I am never tired.

I see my foggy exhalation in the air; I breathe in and my lungs fill with the morning cold, I breathe out and a cloud of warmth quickly fades into the bright filter that is all around. I breathe in again, and out and in again.

It’s a worthwhile way to pass the time.