Hi world.

Happy first weekend of fall. ♥️

I don’t have anything specific or grand to share today, just small, scrambled moments of my life that have made the world brighter lately. This is about nostalgic autumn, mushroom risotto, and keeping your heart open as you grow.

SOME GLIMMERS

Reading Cup of Jo the other day, I came across the idea of glimmers. I had never heard of them. As opposed to triggers, glimmers are small things that inspire feelings of warmth and hope. They can be leaves falling into the street or a stranger saying hello to you on the street. They can be pumpkins appearing on porches or the smell of coffee when you’re walking through the city. I thought that that was such a gentle and loving concept, the kind that you might teach to a little kid when they are upset. Which, I suppose, is how we should think of treating ourselves too. In honor of that, here are some sweet moments from the past few days.

It rained on the first day of fall as I walked to class in a black turtleneck with dark cherry lips, wondering what god conspired to give me a cold day in September. I delivered a presentation to my class and thought of how strange it is that that might have been the last presentation I’ll ever give in school. The semester is somehow already one-third over and I am no where near emotionally prepared to say goodbye.

But for now, I’m sitting outside in the cool evening breeze enjoying my freshly cut hair, trying to pinpoint what is in the air that smells so sweetly nostalgic. Like fall, like cinnamon and brown sweaters and pumpkin bread. The older I get, the more memories that arrive with each change of the seasons. It’s as if when May turns to June or August turns to September, there are whole new worlds to step inside of an explore from the perspective of being another year older. I begin to feel differently and think differently. My mind starts remembering all of the autumns that I have had in my life, each memory running like a train under the entire city that is the present moment.

DINNER

What does the present look like? I’m cooking mushroom risotto tonight with roasted cauliflower and asparagus. We have tall, orange taper candles on the dining room table with a vase of dried, dusty pink flowers in the center. It’s a small, romantic world, one I am trying to enjoy slowly before moving again. The slow, sweet days of folding laundry in the sunlight and going for evening walks under a bubblegum sky.

My favorite nights are the ones where we just sit around the table and talk in the candlelight as music plays, that very cool thing that they do in other countries but that was lost on America, on fast food. There’s something special about gathering around a table for no special reason other than being alive, and staying there as the candles drip wax into little pools. My goal in life is to always have a small handful of people to sit around a table for hours with. I think it’s medicine.

Sobremesa: time spent lingering at the table, talking and relaxing long after the meal.

OPEN HEART

I’m sure I’ve shared these things before, but I remember talking to my neighbor one afternoon about why teenagers have such a hard time, and her saying something profoundly beautiful. She said that teenagers feel things with such raw potency and that if you’re not careful, those adolescent years could be the last ones where you ever feel anything that way ever again. I think also of that high school teacher who told us, if nothing else, to walk through this world with open hands instead of clenched fists, even when it feels that we are only ever catching broken glass. If I were to see her now, I would want to tell her that I am trying all of the time. Even if she was a bit odd, making us get up and dance for a full song at the start of each class and telling us never to eat grains, I think that she was right about that.

Happy Sunday.

love, m.

GET ON THE LIST

Subscribe to give your inbox something to look forward to.