Dropping Orange and Umber
“Cold snap like a coiled spring
You can feel the frost coming on
We are Marigolden, dropping orange and umber
And barely holding on…
“Putting on old clothes in a new way
Putting on a pose of a new stage
Waking up every day just a little bit changed
As it breaks over us like waves…
“And the body remembers what the mind forgets
Archives every heartbreak and cigarette
And these reset bones, they might not hold
Yeah but they might yet.”
– “Home” by Field Report
I have never prayed for a season like this autumn. The traces of my prior engagement wore this summer like wet socks – grievously uncomfortable, and never allowing my mind to unhinge itself from their condition. I’d forgiven myself for my own misgivings during those three-plus years and set my gaze not on the next relationship but the sole purpose of self-development — not becoming the “cool” man but the warm one: confident but empathetic, not standoffish to his own faults but embracing and even celebrating them.
Yet she lingers. She dances through my dreams at 4:30 in the morning. She’s there, in my bed facing the wall. She’s standing in the kitchen, preparing dinner and averting her gaze. She’s seated next to me in the sedan.
“Where should we go for dinner?” I ask.
“I don’t care. You choose.”
Thoughts of her dissipate in the conscious mind of the day in the cubicle but rekindle in the subconscious of the oversized bed, in the recesses of my mind where I cannot lock her out. It’s the stench of spilled gas that never quite goes away.
It will get better. I’m no different than the next schmuck grieving a loss. Acceptance lurks around the corner like a drug dealer waiting to pitch his stash to the friend of a friend. It’s the wait that seizes the heart, not the cocaine.
The tips of the foliage are reluctantly turning. The decision does not rest with them; the sun’s desire to move along leaves them no choice. The chill can be felt at the edge of the breeze. It causes both shudder and refreshment, depending on the mood. I don’t care as long as it is change and the spaces between the memories draw themselves out like autumnal shadows on an asphalt driveway in the late afternoon.
