11.6

This morning, as I unshroud myself from my blankets, the air bristled against my skin, sharp-edged with an early winter chill. Outside, the reluctantly coming day was still. The air rested gently on the domed slope of the sky, drifting through cloud-patterned daydreams.

Mostly, I did not really feel the earth but rather a simmering discontent for its unwieldiness. For the way my shoulders ache from curling in on themselves. The way I walk more quickly, as if I might somehow outrun the chill.

In Virginia yesterday, I bore my shoulders to the sun. The day was firm and sure in its beauty. Yellow leaves shone with astonishing clarity against the plastic-blue sky. I was shopping in a world of paint samples. The orange of a child’s laughter at sunset, the warm auburn of family, of impending holidays.

I invited the sun in for dinner but she insisted there was work to be done just around the bend. Someone in Asia smiled. We ate quesadillas and walked slowly and slept. 

11.7

I haven’t left the house today. It’s not even my house. Outside Giulio’s window, I watch the rest of the world meander by. A new store has opened across the street. People pause in front of its door, shift their weight, shed a layer, continue on. 

My phone says it is not as chilly as it was yesterday but not as warm as I used to feel looking at myself in the mirror. 

The bed is soft, as I work, I sink into it and the trees outside grow taller. Their leaves have grown crispy like the potatoes we pulled from the oven earlier today. They are golden and brown-edged. They ripple with excitement when the wind blows. I long for their fervor. For the glee they bring to each passing day, unknowing– or perhaps greatly aware– of the demise that will soon befall them. They tumble to the earth. Footsteps. Rain on concrete. Nothing left to hold onto but the fleeting pattern of passing boots and the rats quiet munching. 

They sound like rain when they eat and sleep quietly when the fall comes. 

11.8 

In the museum this morning the sun is brilliant. It pierces through the large windows at sharp angles, dousing the birch floor in tall parallelograms of light. I am sad to be squandered here, inside, while the world is so bright. 

Earlier, on my walk to the subway, my nose prickled with cold. It is always my nose that knows first (or my ears, I suppose), when the temperature has dropped. There were squirrels leaping through the overgrowth at the Bleecker street park; emerging from the leaves like dolphins out of the sea, drawing graceful arcs of excitement. 

I look at them, always, and wonder if they are mine. If they are the babies I knew not long ago, carried home in the pockets of my puffer vest, who licked formula like ice cream and lay spread eagle against my chest. With whom I shared all the warmth I had to give.   

11.9

It is alternatively warm and as I step outside for lunch, they day greets me eagerly. The sun is placid. It too, had a restless night and is moving slowly, shining with a mild sort of distance. 

These days, it’s hard to discern a pleasant chill from an unpleasant one. Perhaps it is really more about me. 

11.10

Dashing about in the evening I am startlingly unaware of the world around me. I am home for only a few minutes between work and happy hour. Shower. Tights. A couple layers of warmth and foundation. 

In my constant desperation to be early, I decide to bike from my house to the restaurant where we are meeting, and immediately regret the decision. The air– deceptively bearable on my initial emergence from the warm apartment– is striking. The cold whips at my cheeks, stings my ears and the tip of my nose. I feel my blood slowing. My eyes water. 

When the city is cold and dark, people become frantic with discontent. They walk more quickly, laugh louder. They hail cabs with desperate eyes and aching feet. 

11.11

It is perfect today at 1 pm. We’ve slept in and are just leaving the house, strolling through Soho and into the tranquility of Tribeca. When the light hits us, crossing the street, everything changes. We are reborn in the sun’s firm cloaking. 

As we finish our meal--though it feels still like morning--we are suddenly aware of the waning day. It will be dark in just a few hours. The light is already growing golden with the onset of evening. As it passes behind a building, our circle of the world darkens and we are stricken with a chill that passes beyond our frail skin and into the depths of our thoughts. 

Someone asks about the innocence of winter. Perhaps, it is me who asks, and perhaps only in my head. On the back-end of the breeze, one can just now begin to feel the onslaught of the season. It curls in on itself with the cold. They say it will snow in December. We start counting the days.

11.12

On the way to Trader Joe's it is lovely. The earth blossoms in the golden glow of November. Leaves float in scattered patterns toward the earth. Pale yellow, burnt orange, deep saturated browns. 

I am struck by the beauty of it all; the children dashing across the street, stiff-limbed inside their puffer coats; the broad angle of the light as it hits the brick-faced west-village buildings; the whisper of pumpkin, cinnamon, coffee. 

I am trying to come up with something original to say about Autumn. The weather today feels like the first gingerbread of the season. Feels like my mother's hands buttering a Bundt pan. Feels like a rainbow in the pacific northwest at the end of which is not a pot of gold but a home. With a porch and a small garden and something baking in the oven.