Fall

he was named Fall after the American season, but I faded into her. Slowly. Scented grip. Laundry detergent and damp umber. Then it was winter. Rosemary, fish curry, lentils, sprouts and whiskey. I shouldn’t have admitted I needed someone to break my fall — yet I did reveal I fall rarely so when I do, I fall hard.

Laundromats, dodging stormfronts, public bus stops, air-frying dinner, chilled red wine, wifi dropouts, raging miscommunication we allocated to cultural differences. Then I swallowed and it was spring. 

Marmalade sunsets start to cure the sky, slow-cooking dusk with bronze crackling. Fall and I celebrate the superstitious poignancy of shared star signs and shouldering birthdays — because it’s fun to lean into cosmic timing and spacedust. The breeze is fresh with seaweed and salt, and what else can we trust? But coming from the opposite hemisphere, Fall wasn’t a springtime baby. Not used to shifting trade winds full of pollen, flying ants, and the pregnant till of a nascent, long summer.

The heat comes with coastal spice, and the enervating surety of summer. The scorched sky paints a reptilian tail of white scales. Stuff has gathered: long-life milk, a charcoal toothbrush, Central Perk coffee mug, dryer balls, PH neutral body soap, a matcha green windbreaker. Then I realise too late the zodiac has failed us. She is irrefutable as the wending seasons — and my words scissor a postmortem for the retroactive and unrequited.

I wonder if being born into the fallen leaves and petrichor of autumn lifted and locked Fall into the past; to the consortium and comfort of nostalgia, warm clothes, friendly exes, hot tea, soup, central heating, eighties movies, and coddling protection that comes with knowing what has already happened, so you can predictably prevent it happening again.

After messages of building walls, oxygen and space, and holding on to the good things, I look to make space in my open-air wardrobe. My vintage, sherpa-lined suede winter jacket is taking up half the room like it should do. Goading me to get back on that slope like I’m a Montana rancher. It’s oversized and bought from a charity thrift store years ago when I lived in Manchester. Northern England and it’s perennial wetness. Anyone who says they don’t have a favourite winter coat is a liar. Autumn here is so short (and summer is so long) but because of the clothes, fall is my favourite season.