Acorn squash for lunch in the university cafeteria. For dessert, ginko leaves.

Oh, Ishmael, I love you, buddy, but you should have stuck with me in November.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is A DAMP, DRIZZLY NOVEMBER in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

I get it. You needed to get away. But if you’d just planned ahead a bit more, if you’d just imagined how you might have felt in November had you, in order to prevent that melancholy from washing over you, gone up to New England and imbibed the fall colors in October, all your trouble could have been avoided.

But even if you did let November slip up upon you, you could have just come to visit me. I’m guessing the trees here in Shizuoka in November are a lot like they are in New England in October.

Why, oh, why did you choose to immerse your gray soul in a gray sea and go on a wild hunt for a colorless whale? Trust me, the bright fall colors would have been better for your damp, drizzly soul.  We know its dark down in the depths of the ocean. No need to confirm it.

Certainly, if I could have met you at the docks, I would have suggested the mountains of Umegashima over the Pequod, or at least a walk around our Shizuoka University campus.

I wish you could have been on campus with me today. I truly do.

And I hope I can take you to the mountains some time.

Well, you had your hard time, and I’m not sure where you are now, but if you have access to these words, let me take this opportunity to extend an open-ended invitation to you: come look at the colors.

They’re everywhere.

Maybe next time, a bit about that Ahab dude.