Harvest Preparations

September 6, 2008--It looks like fall but feels like Mexico. The Carolinas are sitting ducks as four impending hurricanes dance their way towards the coast. I could go for a little rain.
Time is moving slowly. My boots are marred in river mud and my mind fell out of my pocket about three steps back. This time of year always does this to me. I'm ready for October. I already started packing my summer clothes away, knowing full well I'll be digging them out again within 48 hours. I'm eager to visit my family for a few days. Enjoying conversation in shared physical space with my parents is a simple act I've grown to appreciate. I'm in a calm and happy place now, and am eager to face my hometown in my own skin, without the preoccupation of trying to impress or keep a fast pace or prove myself in numerous fashions.
I always loved my hometown in mid-October, so I've chosen the perfect time for a quick visit. The air will be just cool enough to dissect the smells of burning leaves, and the coffee with hazelnut we'll drink on the patio. My father will be inside in a sweatshirt, listening to a game on the radio with his tumbler of liptons, while my mother will show off her plants and newspaper clippings and other goodies she's been saving up for months to show off to her daughter.
I'll stare at the red house where the Dicksons live, and think about how I used to play under their porch and pick up rocks and how their house smelled like dog and baked apple. Now they are so old they're fragile and it feels like if i hug them too hard they will fold in half like paper dolls. The paint is as fresh and red as when i was five. It will never belong with a different set of occupants, and when that day comes, I will face the strange loss of something permanent crumbling in the skyline of my formative landscape.
The orange fat cat will slip in and out of view, like a person in a dream situation who doesn't belong, but keeps on making appearances.
We'll 'drive to go get a burger' and on the ride, mom will drop nuggets of news about people as we pass their houses or places where important things have happened. We will eat at home around the table and then move into the living room before dad decides to turn in, and mom will stay up to chatter, and then she'll ask my opinion on paint color palettes for the bathroom and she'll go to bed, leaving me to tuck myself in my bed in the room I grew up in. It's a lot more comforting than I gave it credit for. It will be bliss.
Hurry up October.

Album of the Day:
Harvest Moon--Neil Young