constellations #73: return to peak foliage
Hi again.
I hope you’re doing well. What a month! I spent fully half of the nights since we last spoke sleeping someplace that is not the city where I live. I’m just a touch worse for wear (but maybe better for it, too).
So here is just a brief note to say that lately I have been thinking about change. Maybe that’s because of the season — I really do feel like every autumn is a gift. I know it’s corny but it’s true! Every year at this time I feel astounded, really, when the heat breaks, and the trees are all colorful, and I keep unexpectedly knocking into sunrises and sunsets. (Remember when Elle wrote a love letter to spring last year? Maybe this is my love letter to autumn.) It feels like an exhale, like the start of a leveling-off after running up that hill all year1; retreat in the best sense.
Which is to say: It really is so nice that time keeps moving forward, despite everything, you know? Which is to say: It really is so nice that things can change. A journal entry I saw on Instagram: “Big change is natural, inevitable, gorgeous,” and later, “Let autumn be the antidote to any societal pressure to stay the same,” and later, “The new space between branches is needed in order to see the possibilities.” It is crazy and beautiful that we can change.
As is my tradition, I put together a(nother) playlist for peak foliage. Some new songs, some old songs; mostly sweetly sad songs — perfect for leaf peeping, for slowly drinking a hot coffee on a quiet morning, for driving around with the windows down and the heat on. I hope you enjoy.
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Here are some other things I have been consuming lately: I Walked With You A Ways by Plains (which I reviewed); The Loneliest Time by Carly Rae Jepsen; Strange Mangers; Dreaming Of You by Melissa Lozada-Olivia; Cry Perfume by Sadie Dupuis; this essay about the New England woman; The Worst Person In The World; Algernon Cadwallader live (!!); the last dahlias of the season; a lot of olives; one really great hair day; nine life-affirming days in Washington, D.C. and three marvelous days in St. Petersburg, Florida
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This time last year I was: writing about youth and helplessness and my favorite album (that one is a constellations classic imo); and, before that, thinking about Stockholm and trying not to be scared
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Thanks for reading. If you’ve got some big change brewing, I hope it feels good. See you next twenty-fourth.
xo,
M
Sorry, couldn’t resist