Today’s the first day that it’s smelled like autumn since last October.
Everything is still green; the grass, the leaves, the garden, but there was an afternoon rain shower and afterwards the air was cool and fresh and somewhat crisp. The night comes a little quicker and is less willing to brighten with the morning sun. It’s a bit dryer too, less thunderstorms and lighter temperatures and more airy. The wind is blowing swiftly at my hair (yes, I’m on the built-for-two swing set) and it smells like orange and yellow and red leaves but feels smooth like vanilla or running water. Everything seems cleaner somehow, maybe the chilly nights act as a cleanser while the rest of us sleep, and the sunlight is tinged with gold the same hue as pale champagne.
In the next two months we’ll be doing fall activities. Picking sweet corn, carving pumpkins and eating squash, standing on upturned buckets to harvest apples (you should see the apples this year) that hang heavily from their boughs. There will be fallen leaves to rake, gardens to compost, outdoor furniture to be put into storage.
Of course there’s the wardrobe change to initiate as well. Time to pack away the shorts and tank tops and sundresses and bring out sweaters and long sleeves and denim jeans. Scarves, gloves, and jackets will be worn as often as sandals were during the heated dog days of summer.
It’s going to be cold tonight, and my hands will appreciate a warm drink (tea, coffee, cider) a little more than they would have a week ago. It doesn’t take long for things to change. Or for people, evidently.
I’m unsure of what went wrong, or where it went wrong. I know we started talking less at some point. Our conversations…no one I’ve ever met has ever had me so engaged in talk that I have lost track of time only to glance at the clock and find that 3 hours have elapsed. But, at some point, those conversations dwindled into chats into short words into…not even into good-byes. I thought you wanted your space, so I gave it to you. Perhaps silence wasn’t the correct way for me to respond, but it seemed so much easier than asking for direction at the time.
Having meals together, a practice of those few, short months, fell out of habit. You were late for work, I for church. Once the ritual was broken, it was only easier to break it again. One of us could have woken a bit earlier, got the tea and coffee going, cracked the eggs and beat the batter, greased the pan and set out the plates. Neither of us did, and neither of us commented on the absence of a morning meal together.
So many little things that seemed trivial at the time but now, as I look back, have the appearance of earthquakes, shaking and shifting the foundations of our relationship until it caved in on itself and you were gone swifter than you came and here I’m left lonelier in the wake of your departure than I was before your arrival.
I don’t know what I expected. You told me, right from the beginning, that you were a wanderer. You roamed, town to town, even country to country, finding work as you needed it and living life on your own terms. There was an allure to that, a sparkling, edgy defiance for society’s most prized values: stability, commitment, status. Freedom of that caliber had never been condoned, certainly never offered, to me. You told me not to become attached to you, that you would, eventually, move on. I assured you that, no, I would absolutely not become attached to you. How could I, when I had always preferred the solitude of my own hours over the company of others? Somewhere along the line, when months passed and still you stayed, I broke my promise and began to think of you as mine. It was foolish of me, thinking that I alone was enough to ground you to one place when your heart was always meant for the open road. And now you’re gone, and I have no idea where you are. This letter will never even be posted to you.
I miss you. I miss you and I’m not sure if you’re aware of that or not. I’d rather you be oblivious to my heartache, because to be the opposite would mean that you’re aware of how I feel and simply don’t care, and I can’t stand the thought of you being callous and inconsiderate enough to not even write me a “good-bye.” Yet I wonder if knowing that I’m on your mind would ease my anxiety or only succeed in planting the false hope that you still love me.
Whatever the case may be, whether you do or do not think of me, I think of you far more often than I would like to and with too much whimsy to be healthy. Oddly, I think of you the most when I’m sipping my coffee. You hate(d?) coffee. I drink it quickly because like I said prior, thoughts of you haunt me enough these days. There’s no need for me to actively seek them.
Though my heart may ache, I will not pine for you. Though my eyes may burn, I will not cry for you. But I will remember you. I will keep your memory as close as I dare in the slimmest hope that, someday, you’ll come back to me. If you do, I cannot promise that what you come back to will be what you left behind. After all, things change.
Love, always,
____________
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