It's Probably Autumn Now

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
- John Keats, To Autumn

The season of mists has begun. As it normally does, in rain, cloud, and infrequent bursts of sunshine, not unlike a temperamental child. This year, autumn has come early, as if in retort to my earlier scepticisms of a warm September and a frosty April. I don't normally like Septembers (my favourite months are December and February) and this year, September feels like September. No illusions of summer past it's time, no clinging on to hope that things are other than a dull and bland month. I like it that way. It's real, no pretensions, 100% pure honesty.

If we could break up the periods of one's life into months, I'm probably coming September by now. Assuming uneven months, it feels at this time of the year that the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed months of spring, the successes of an earlier summer have faded into a mellow and warm, coffee-drinking, bossa-nova listening, warm-coloured season. It's the season that holds off the seduction of crisp frost in December, the season that is wise to the innocent white of January's pale lips and skin, the season that says, "Tell me as it is and give me nothing more." It is the wise woman of the fates, the mother, the matriarch, the empress.

Eat with me the plum fruits of bliss,
Watch golden rays of sun caress the edge of night
Dance gently in falling leaves and fading light
Intoxicated by the season of mists.

One Art

Over packing and getting ready to move, and watching "In Her Shoes" in which this poem featured, Elizabeth Bishop comes back to become a rather good friend:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

As it always seems to me upon moving, and packing, and relocating,

The art of packing isn't hard to master, and quite the same,
Though different; as losing,
Yourself in labels and boxes with a name.

Pack something every day. Put another part
of yourself in a box, draw lines, imagine
That you can be divided up, a mind, a heart.

I packed two photographs, from two
Places, two faces, some memories lost
Another preserved, unused, untrue.

Even then it's impossible to lose; the
Fear of losing overcome by fear of use
The art of packing isn't hard to master
The fear of losing forgot the fluster.

27

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

There is very little, and then very much, about growing up, and growing old. At the end of 26 years, the one thing I've learnt is the value of persistence.

The persistence of time, of dreams, of hope, of love.

A year, then another, then another. I'd stopped celebrating my birthday at 21. Or so I thought. This year and another, a vague and futile effort to try and make a day special. Just because. Commemorating the turn of another year, the hope of all things new, the dream of stepping closer to where I'd want to be, the belief that having someone special by your side makes things somehow better, despite being miles away from...

So I went up the wheel I'd sworn off 8 years ago - the persistence of time/
I finally got the one gift I've been waiting for - the persistence of dreams/
I found myself a dream job (although I didn't apply) and convinced myself that I'm moving closer - the persistence of hope/
And I baked myself my own birthday cake - an Oreo cheesecake, proving to myself that I could actually bake without much assistance - the persistence of love.

Each year I try to coop myself up in silence and think deep thoughts. I didn't end up doing it this year. But I did manage to get my deep thought of the year:

The risk of realising your dreams too early is that you stop knowing what to do for the rest of your life.

Be careful what you wish for.