little daydreamer,
with age, I’m beginning to learn myself better through how I move through seasons. in return, I learn the seasons more intimately, too; prepare for each arrival like I’m readying the guest room down the hall. winter tends to sleep in through the mornings, late summer is the one that prefers peach tea, right—November asked for red wine.
fall is dreary and romantic and unbearable and marvelous. I want to stand silent like a painting in the corner. I want to be something unseen and untouched. most seasons, it’s a favorite pastime of mine to sit back and observe; watch the world from a park bench or the cozy clatter of a corner cafe, but come fall, the hobby feels too prickly. each scene wears a thin melancholy dusting. an older trio of friends order another round of beer at the seafood restaurant, loose smiles tipped up at the waitress, but in her departure, a heavy sigh settles around the table, a scrape to find the next subject. a string of folk love songs rattle out from the speakers of a stale antique mall and my empty hands pulse.
I crave both quiet and the warmth of a chattering living room and am having a hard time finding an in-between. a puzzle left on the coffee table that my roommate and I pick at between work calls and dinner. a remembered pearl necklace around my mother’s neck and how it pulled tighter in hushed holiday arguments with my father. I dream of a day the word thanksgiving is long retired from this country, but I would also very much like to have you over for dinner. do you prefer pumpkin? pecan? the candlesticks tower above our dinner plates and you leave around 11 with three tupperware dishes.
despite years of not spending holidays with my parents, I feel a pull to visit now. I imagine winding down the evening at the dinner table, wine glass held gently to my chest, a soft conversation with my mother, an overdressed tree twinkling from the corner. an apron tied around my waist, arms tired after grinding the potato masher fruitlessly into the stubborn, sleeping earthy heaps. I risk picturing a few days on the east coast; my dad’s eyebrows raised upwards in this imaginary visit. adjusting to who we have become since we spoke last. asking “how have you been?” with the kind of weight that will make him answer as a person first before slipping into parental formality. I don’t want to label these things as impossible. I don’t want to say that’s why I don’t have a ticket booked. but still, I am happy to be here, making a family out of open invitations, enjoying closeness where I know I will never have to beg for it.
autumn is piano keys; soft tss tss of jazz drums from a record in the other room. the migration of the thicker duvet to my bed, but keeping a slender gap in the window to smell the cold air run through the few last stubborn leaves. a long exhale catching the sunset at 4:30 PM, remembering I have made it through this before and I will again. autumn’s lipstick bleeds onto her teeth. it’s searching for where the sadness sits in my body. pie with graham cracker crust. picking pine needles from your hair. soup on the stove. curating a list of joys that are not reliant on the sun: lemon ginger tea, When Harry Met Sally, the moon’s dark yellow cat eye; a desire to throw dinner parties every weekend, despite only owning three chairs.
autumn, I want to wrap a scarf around your neck. I want to pull you in for one more embrace before our “see you later.”
with love,
schuyler (sky-ler)
fourth chair fund (venmo): schuylerpeck