Autumn Notes From Home

[This cat cares nothing for the season, and doesn’t approve of anyone’s feelings about the weather.]

It is finally looking like fall, now that we’re right up to the moment of October. In my mind the leaves should always peak on the tenth, no matter what the rest of the wide world says. But that requires intense bursts of color all through the month of September. And that hasn’t come about. Most of those, tired, depressed, gently fluttering remnants of the summer’s failing glory are still green, less the ones that have gone brown and fallen away.

I’m trying my best to get a handle on this house, to do all the laundry and clean all the rooms, and put away all the things, because, well, for one single day it would be nice to have true order, before I begin the dreaded clothes switch. Suddenly shorts and sandals are losing their appeal and everyone is looking for a sweater. Which means I will have to go up and open the bins, and look in them, and look with squinty eyes at the past, at the traumatic truth of children growing up and eventually leaving me for better and grander adventures. Changing over the clothes is the Worst–the work, the regret over lost moments, the anxiety for the unknown future. It’s too terrible to contemplate comfortably.

I don’t mind the cold in this house though. Once the leaves fall away I’ll be able to see all the way to the flickering lights of downtown through my lofty bedroom window. And the whole main level was designed, it seems, to catch and reflect the glowing evening twilight. It’s going to be fine, as long as I never go outside.

But don’ think of asking me how I feel in four months. Because I will know then that I am a fool now to think it will all be warmth and ease. And now I must go, because everybody is screaming. Pip pip.