black lace leggings and the perfect cup of coffee. (some things can't be cheered back)

(sept. 9)


Damn.
Well, here we are. Summer's tune is slowing, lowering and will soon be lulling to the sound of autumn. We made to the end of it again. Once I get used to the clattering of leaves found in that song, the wailing winds and the sudden crack of sticks on the ground I will like this song too, but for now I am hesitant to turn off the song I have been swaying to during the last months.
I am used to it. I am used to slipping into tiny cotton shorts and little tank tops and mounting Bruno for a cruise to work, smacking the windows of cars in the bike lane, a place I consider strictly mine. Rolling into work, sweaty and spending my mornings out on the playground with my preschoolers, stopping in New Orleans for doughnuts on our way to Israel on the old lumber we pretend is a train. I will miss staining my feet with the rays of the sun, leaving curious lines on my feet.
I found myself kicking walls of water in the pouring rain, running down the streets drunk with happy alongside friends I adore. I am accustom to skidding out from a rainstrom and sharing the thoughts and mysteries of life, love and happiness over the glow of a flashlight and between the slurps of freeze-dried foods in a tent. i am used to taking in the north shore from high above on the Superior hiking trail, and the impromptu trips that brought me there. It was a summer of waterfalls, of hidden prairies and caves.
I am used to loud laughter, epic tales and finding people you can be nothing but yourself with.
I am used to dancing.
It was a summer of learning to feel rocks in a new light, for the purpose of climbing them. It was a summer of mounting summits for the purpose of reaching them in the cascades. It was a summer of being alone in airports and mountain passes.
I am used to sitting at the bottom of metal canoes, giggling directions to the strong friends perched at the paddles, and quacking over the waves.
It was a summer of finding the new depths of people. It was a summer of telling them everything and letting the words slip out alongside tears overlooking the shimmering lights of the city over the river. It was a summer of finding endless light in them, and saving the happiness of doing so in my heart. It was also a summer of hearing the rude and abrupt clunk when the depth of people is found to be shallower than you would have expected, and learning how to deal with the discovery, however disappointing it is.
Above all though it was a brilliant time and a beautiful song and if it were up to me I would ask for just one more, an encore of sorts.
Unlike the concerts I saw this summer though, it doesn’t work like that. No matter how excited I am to have more, I can’t. She sung her last for the year, the thing I need to realize though is that I will like you in the fall too. Your laugh will be as sweet and your smile as bright. Besides, I like the autumn too. I like pumpkins and cooking spaghetti squash with brown sugar. I like the glow of bonfires and the way the trees alight themselves of fire with colors of gold and orange and you can watch leaves pirouetting out of trees to be caught by childlike hands. I love scruffy faced men in flannel shirts. Yes, I can used to this too. Soon my ipod will pump Trace Bundy into my ears over the sound of leaves crunching under my feet.
Yesterday I went to the fair with a friend to take it all in on the last day. I saw cows, horses and drank tons of milk. We ate alligator and spun giggling in the midway. That morning I had dug leggings out of my drawer to put on underneath my summer dress and as sad as that makes me, someone told me as I waited for him around the corner, that I looked absolutely lovely dressed the way I was. She told me I looked like a painting, dress blowing in the wind. I just blushed and murmured a thank you. Yes, I am transferring to fall and its going to great.
This is all one giant reminder to myself, and to you too if you need it, that you will like fall too. Remember rosy cheeks in the blowing of the cool wind? Remember hot chocolate between chilly fingers? Remember those bright trees that taunt the now gone colors of the summer flowers that came before them?
Yep, I am starting to remember too.
Meet me for a long walk through the woods? I will bring the thermos. -Corrie