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One of the things I miss most about the Pacific Northwest is the fall. Fall in Portland is vibrant, showy, inescapable, and oh, how I loved it. Fall in Berkeley is far more subtle.

You won’t find it on every street. The trees bear their autumn colors with far less pride and flamboyance.

To the way that light and shadow play on a November day.

To a single bright flower.

Or a few vibrant leaves.

And I found that as I began to notice these lovely little details, they began to make themselves more apparent to me, until all the world seemed to burst with detail, finely etched and vibrant.

It is a very different kind of beauty than the opulent trees of my hometown. But this kind of beauty is, I think, no less powerful, and perhaps in some ways, even more so, than the kind of beauty that can’t be overlooked or ignored.

For these small, precious things require a second glance, a double take, a bit of extra attention in order to be truly seen. And like all small, precious things, they are worth the effort.

July, where did you go? You flew away from me like the strings of a kite slipping through my fingers in a gust of wind.

I went to the Berkeley Kite Festival last weekend. I’m so glad that I did.

There were kites of all sizes and colors, and families, too. The wind was strong. The sky never looked so three-dimensional.

I was reminded of my childhood, when we would go the county fair, surrounded by other families, the booths selling the same old things like they do every year, and it was almost as if nothing had changed.

It made me glad to know that families can still enjoy kites and cheap food stands, even and especially here in the San Francisco Bay Area, where 22 year olds routinely play the startup lottery and win big (or so the news would have us believe), and where it is so easy to forget something as simple and joyful as flying a kite on a windy day.

There was a little girl with pink sequined shoes. I bet, for her, they were the best shoes in the whole world. How I would have loved a pair of shoes like that at her age. I would have felt like a princess. And for that one moment in time, it would have been enough.

I have always loved kites. They are at once beautiful and tragic, soaring high above our heads, tugging us along in the wind as we hold on by a thread, one inevitable thread that keeps us here, our feet upon the ground, until at last we are overcome, and soar into the heavens one last time.