October

On Now: Writing ruts, waiting, and not wanting the night to end

October was waterfalls and the shadows of leaves and forgetting to take photos because the moment had all of my attention. It was seeing my hero play the Ryman two nights in a row and still not being able to shake his voice from my bones. It was running hugs from my son in the morning and the fog crawling across the lake. It was warm chile rellenos drenched in cheese and struggling to write but doing it anyway. It was my son singing the alphabet song and replacing the “S” with Elvis. Q, R, Elvis, T, U, V. It was secret bars in storage closets that weren’t actually storage closets and listening to The National on a street corner in Nashville. It was honey-soaked focaccia and flaky salt and too many Old Fashions. It was my niece in a princess costume holding my son by the hand and trying not to cry over how much I love them. It was spending whole days looking at the mountains that had gone from blue to red and mourning every leaf that fell. It was taking my son to his second Gregory Alan Isakov show and watching his face as he recognized the songs we listen to every day. It was pumpkin patches and missing my brother and crying over kid’s books about growing up. It was picking apples where the orchard meets the sky and eating chocolate-covered strawberries in the last of the day’s orange light. It was cowboy hats and soft sweaters and wanting my arm in his to mean something. It was flour-covered faces and freezing hands and rainbows over the lake. It was street festivals and fiddle music and stuffing our pockets with acorns. It was Charleston rain storms and quiet talkers and not wanting the night to end but knowing that it had to.