Sweet Baby James

Now playing: "Fire and Rain" - James Taylor

I was driving home from Watertown today; being that it was Saturday, the roads were free-flowing and I could count on being home within 20 minutes.

I decided to take route 117, cutting through the Walden Pond State Reservation. See, it was a crisp, sunny, brilliant afternoon, one that deserved to be appreciated and experienced. One simply cannot do this at 65 miles an hour.

I had the windows down despite the 55 degrees and the serene quality of the fresh air filled my car, occasionally punctuated with the sweet smell of a firepit. Contrary to my usual, the radio was almost silent; I preferred to listen to the wind whistle past my car, the distant sounds of hawks cawing. Fall has arrived in Massachusetts; the sumacs were preparing their brilliant red glow as the foliage was gearing up for it's annual breathtaking display.

Over the radio came "Fire and Rain," the classic James Taylor song...those unmistakable first guitar notes gave me goosebumps. Here, I chose to turn the radio up. When I was 15 years old, James Taylor was my first concert at the Old Met Center in Bloomington (indeed, the Met Center no longer exists...you'll instead find the behemoth Mall of America where it once stood). At that concert, my friend Jenny and I got to experience secondhand marijuana smoke, my first attempt at driving someone other than my mother in my car, and the sweet, intoxicating harmonies of JT.

It was perfection in a moment; the brilliant fall colors along the banks of Nashoba Brook accompanied by the strains of Massachusetts' most famous balladeer. I sat down on a stone bench along the water bank and just absorbed.

It's those times when I slow down to engage all my senses when I realize.....how much I love it here, how happy I am to be here and how I cannot imagine being anywhere else.