fall

[typewritten on my old royal while discovering the fleet foxes]


the weather shifted. The apples are on the ground. The hammock is wet. The light shifted. Its white and blue, not yellow, except inside.
And the insides are all red and warm as blood. Books and crafts and soup and coffee and hot toddys. I lean on coffee and spoon with whiskey. nothing crisp about this time of year. Chills. The dying of the light here is a muted affair. With damp seeping in every corner. The greenness darkens and the greys become saturated. I choke on the gulp in my throat. Hot liquid brims over my vision.
But its a different elation streaked despair. There is a soft gathering-in here. Of bounty, friends, creative energy. A promise of lush productivity throughout the coming dark months. Kale in february. So distant from the childhood joy of hazy heat breaking into clear, sharp, rainbow-leaved glory of the shedding of summer's hard-won fruits. The last big push of life before death masks all, shrouding with a crystalline blanket for cold comfort. But darkness at 4:30 wasn't so bad if it was preceded by even snow-glare-false brightness.
It's the greige I fear. The endless, merciless clouding of senses. The forced introversion where the mountains peak out only a handful of times in 6 months. Projects can be saviors of sanity. They bring functionality to a dysfunction of climate. A fortress of weather barring your path to anything resembling healthy contentment. Aah...despair, you are seeping in so quickly. Bedfellow of anticipation these days. Dangerous...
if only there was the promise of respite. Experience is a harsh teacher. But this time I feel ready. I myself. Not relying on outside forces. I get it now. The drive to create equaling the will to survive. That necessity is never stronger than the first of the year, looking back at 3 straight months of greige and ahead at another 4? 5? yeah, the perpetual growth of everything around you can help stretch what little you have left--its heartening to see flowers on trees superbowl weekend. Spring encroaches on the ground early, but doesn't launch an aerial attack for so long. So long. The body forgets what to do with the odd yellow warmth from the sky that peaks out with such infrequence and brief duration. Oh, god. A shadow. I almost forgot what their limits looked like. A true squint, not just lazy-liddedness. It's amazing what you can get used to, even convince yourself you don't need...until it comes upon you again and you grasp it like gasping for air after an ill-advised and myopic submergence of soul and body and intellect into a muddy mountain-fed pool of icy northwest reserve.
Shiver. Put on an oversized sweater. Hold a cup of coffee up to your nose with both hands. Wrap your half-numb fingers around a free-flowing pen. Get the fuck out of this town. Or embrace every last drop. Curl your tongue around it like your kitten, tail to nose in your lap.
There is no other way. Love it, love it. There is no leaving.