September

September is back to being September for me.

A drizzly Friday evening, blessedly nondescript, two weeks from the official start of fall.

Last year September was “my first month on my own.” It was a time of settling, of being unsettled but earnestly wanting to feel settled, of finding places for books and pictures and occasional flowers from the grocery store. It was a month of new curtains and new curtain rods. It was a month of new drives to the nearby conveniences – the bank, the wine store, the movie theatre, the dry cleaner's.

With the close of the work day, this September day has beguiled me by its coolness, its quiet, its ease.

I got to sit on my couch with a volume of Mary Oliver’s poetry and just read.

I got to listen to slow, steady dripping outside the window.

I got to enjoy the summer’s purchase of Willoughby Elliott’s Two Warm Trees on the wall across from my couch.

I recognized the familiar invitation of a Friday evening to let a tightly wound week unfold and unfurl and drift easily off to the corners of consciousness.

I recognized some familiar ways of being John.