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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 baked 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; PH neutral body soap; black Anko G-strings; her four silver rings left on the nightstand, which makes her feel naked when not wearing them, and apprehensive when she messages to say they’re missing. Then I realise too late the zodiac has failed us.
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. I didn’t see the understudy with the impenetrable smile was protecting the wall Fall built from her camouflaged past.
After messages of emotional unavailability, oxygen and space, and holding on to the good things (which is never a good thing to hear), Fall’s stand-in is irrefutable as the wending seasons — and my words scissor a postmortem for the retroactive and unrequited. Summer here doesn’t go away without a fight. It lingers and limps like gallant quarry. The sun’s orbit wanes to the south and shadows stretch. Prevailing polar winds from the Southern Ocean strip leaves from trees and silences the insects and birdsongs. Then autumn falls.
In the fugitive vacuum of quietude where dry twigs snap like bones, 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.
