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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Mass Amherst chapter.

The weather lately has got me in the perfect fall mood. The air is crisp enough to get my attention but warm enough to coax me outside in the afternoon sun, so flannels and chunky sweaters are the perfect option. Fall always seems to bring me nostalgia. It’s a time where I feel mellow and peaceful, and where I can look out my window and find real light. It’s the leaves transforming into vibrant displays of color, making their previous shades of green seem dull and lifeless. The sounds of kids jumping, running, laughing are somehow always in the air. And of course the added bonus all of things fall; pumpkin spice, warm sweaters,my favorite boots and cozy fires with hot apple cider. 

This warm feeling of nostalgia has got me craving to experience it with someone else. Someone to share that peace with. Just imagine putting on a comfy sweater and a pair of leather heeled boots and some leggings. You’re feeling excited, confident, cute and cozy. This is what makes all the stresses in the week worth it. He picks you up and gives you a big bear hug when he sees you, opens the car door. (What can I say, I’m a bit of a cliche) He drives with the windows down and light music playing and we go out for coffee. We get a cute little corner table in a local cafe and I’m sipping on a pumpkin chai with apple cider donuts and we’re chatting. Peaceful conversation about our lives; nothing important and yet it feels like everything. 

After coffee and a really good conversation, we take a walk down to the apple orchard that’s a couple streets away. We kick leaves and walk hand in hand, commenting on the people, the view and warmth we feel from each other (despite the breeze). We get to the orchard and it’s a gorgeous sunny day. Row after row of trees, scenery and all I’m thinking about is the plenty of aesthetic pictures I’m going to get out of this. I tell him I wanna climb one of the trees and he has to help me up. He jokingly makes fun of me for being short. We throw apples at each other and we fill up a basket to make apple pie later. It’s the beautiful moments like this that make it all worth it. The moments where time seems suspended and it could just be you and me together in that field picking apples and laughing together all day.  

It’s getting late by the time we are done apple picking but we decide to catch the sunset before we leave. So we decide to sit on a hay bale, my head on his shoulders and his arm around mine watching the sky burst into color mimicking the leaves we’ve been looking at all day. I catch him watching me, attentive as usual. He would catch me off guard with a deep question, something like “Do you believe everything happens for a reason?” or “What’s something that makes you feel alive?” Something very fitting of the day we just had together. And I would be so pleasantly surprised because those are the kinds of conversations I like to have the most. Beyond the pleasantries and how was your day? I think getting to know someone on a level deeper than the surface gives you an incomparable connection. 

This date, where I spend the day doing something fun and adventurous with great company, and conversation feeling loved and wanted. That’s what I would call my perfect date. 

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Myna Chadalavada

U Mass Amherst '22

Myna is a senior neuroscience and biochemistry double major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is passionate about her research in emotion regulation and wants to find a way to use her words to change a life. You can find her in the greenhouse, on a rooftop garden writing poetry, the 23rd floor of the library with a book in her hand, or a room with a piano.