So you're saying it's fall...
Dear Erin,
I’m so sorry about your dog. I always had dogs growing up. Or, I guess, my mom always had dogs while I was growing up, and I pretended they were mine. (I certainly didn’t worry about their food, or cleaning up after them.) Regardless, dogs are part of the background noise of life, the basics of my sort of basic living. Because we also have dogs now. And though they are slightly annoying—Maria never, ever comes when you call her. Penny always comes, even if you’re not much interested in saying hello—I am glad of their presence during the day.
Although, to be honest, they scared me a few times last week. You see, my family is definitely off to school now, even my youngest, and suddenly small noises in the house over-frighten me, my subconscious apparently well-aware that I am well-alone. Just last week I got jump-scared at least three times by the dogs. They were only snoozing. Dreaming in their sleep. Chasing rabbits and, probably, the cat. I’ll have to get used to their noises in a different way now. Anyhow, I don’t know why I think anyone is so intent on murdering me that they’d sneak into the house…
All of this to say, I am sorry about your dog. One of my go-tos in a moment like this is Mary Oliver’s collection on dogs, and you should definitely read it, unless you should definitely not read it yet. In which case, you should wait a few months. I also once found the most amazing picture book about those dogs in our life that decide to wander off to their next existence as though no one else here minded, but then I returned it to the library and promptly forgot its title, so I don’t know what to tell you about that. It did have this lovely illustration of a bush in it (which is all my mind happens to specifically remember about it) so if that helps you find it: Bravo!
In the meantime, happy back to school and happy fall. I sent my two oldest off to the world quite early this morning. They’ve taken on a job for the start of the new year, and are busy cleaning laundromats in the small corners of their lives. I try to be all motherly and get up when they get up (4:45 am, this morning) but I’m not sure it makes much impact as I’m not much interested in making them a warm breakfast or even packing them a lunch.
To my credit, I did pack their lunches for them when they were little, but I made the same thing every day, no matter what they said (and a boring lunch, besides) and they finally sighed in exasperation and took on the task for their own. Which means my motherly attentiveness extends to waking up before the sun and then standing at the door and waving at them as they drive away. (Have fun storming the castle!) I also periodically check up on them through Find My Friends, though I’m not sure staring at a blue dot on my screen gives me much real information about how life at the laundromat is going.
They’ve got some funny stories from the laundromat. And if it weren’t 4:45 am, I’m sure I would remember them for you and write them down. It’s kind of nice when the world flips around and instead of you telling your children stories, they bring home stories to tell you. I get good lines from them, for books I’m supposedly writing, and I try to keep track of them in my head (though my attempt to remember that picture book’s title might clue you in to how well that goes for me.)
Still, and getting back to your letter, I agree that breaking the habit of starting life off with a new school year is nigh to impossible. In fact, I don’t think our family will ever move away from that, since Justin is a professor and we quite obviously will always live in a college town. So, no unfollowing the school system for us!
Anyway, I used to love the fall when I was little, so maybe there’s something to embrace with that. I loved heading back to school, buying pens and paper at the local pen shop (Perry’s!), watching football games with my family (my uncle was a coach—Go, Granite, Go!), and waiting for my birthday to arrive (this year I’ll be 40). Though lately fall has fallen out of favor in my book, as it always seems to bring its friend winter along for the visit. It keeps insisting we make friends as well, and I’m a little irritable about that. Just because fall likes winter doesn’t mean I have to like winter too! And yet fall keeps trying, even going so far as to invite winter into October, and—one time, two years ago—September.
As a statement, I’ve been hanging out with summer as long as possible, though it’s not doing much good, and cool air is blowing into town this week. There’s a piece of me that’s hinting I should lean into it. That something about the cool air, and coming inside, will help me get back to work, re-centered. And I need that re-centering, most definitely. Less wandering out to lay in the grass, more hunkering at my desk, a blanket on my lap.
I was discussing with my husband yesterday that a lot of “thinkers” come out of cold country. That all those weeks of hibernation give the mind some room. To be honest, it kind of takes me back to the dogs—my dogs at least. Penny would be summer. So happy to see you. Licking you at every opportunity. Distracting you at every possible moment. Maria would be winter. Bigger than Penny. Fixing you with a doleful stare wherever you go in the house. Quiet and still, and ready for you to be quiet and still as well.
School’s started, she seems to say. Time to get back to work. I promise, winter can be your friend.
I’m not sure I believe it. But the new pens fall always seems to offer up as bet are drawing me in.
Jamie