Lately my attention hovers like a butterfly’s—stopping here, then there, for one short, sweet sip of life before I flit to the next swaying leaf of a moment. There are so, so many places to alight in a city. Too many. The autumn has ripened to a brisk, yellow cool, and brought with it that swooping rush that lifts us into exhilarating gusts of doing. It's been busy in the city! So here I am in the blog, where I can clutch twiggy legs onto beauty and hold a few moments longer before lifting off. I savour words like lepidoptera, and feel the breeze shimmer through my paper body, and do nothing but hold on as diagonal stripes of leaves paint the air around me.

Here are some beautiful instants of the week.

Soup weather. This week brought thick tights and boots, wooden boxes of apple varieties and clusters of fresh eucalyptus at the farmer’s market. This week is was leek soup and flax crackers, apple pie with raw farm cheddar, roasted chicken on creamy parnsip puree.

Appley. The Halloween snow froze my plans to twist off apples and pile them in wooden buckets, but my mom has kept the McIntoshes piled high in my fruitbowl still. My favorite food? Warm apples cozied in buttery crust. These are snacking apples, dehydrated and crisp.

Coffee house shower. My sister and I adopted Em as our third sister when her family lived with ours in elementary school. We carpooled and sledded, and grew up to long chats at cafes and Target runs. She’s marrying a pilot, and so both of my sisses will be in Texas. This weekend, we celebrated with a shower scented with black coffee and pastries.

And then the things unshot—piles of spiky magenta vegetables in Chinatown, brunch with neighbors, the city in the early morning (I’ve been subbing), pricks of light across the water at night.

Long ago in a town that had only drips of traffic, I tried to impress a guy by telling him I was an expert jaywalker. I proceeded to prove this later by carelessly stepping in front of an oncoming truck. I stopped dead in the middle of the road, frozen in fear, and then scampered with my tail between my legs to the other side. Mortifying. He sent me an email that night telling me it was ‘endearing’, and that was the first time I thought Walker might like me. These days? Our steps are synchronized and we step together as lights change. The acquaintance with the continuous rush makes city life calmer. I close my eyes and listen to the subway sounds. I look up in parks to blue. This city? It is starting to feel like home.

We are on the cusp of holidays, but for now, we travel through these clear days where life is a bit more exhuberant in the cool. Beautiful weekend to you all!