It’s Not Fall Yet But It Will Be Soon

It’s not fall yet but it will be soon; since we didn’t get summer until the beginning of February Wellington is giving us a last couple of weeks of sun. It’d been two full months since I heard the wind shriek up through the drains, but last night as I was getting ready for a party it scratched its nails down the blackboard of my ears and reminded me that the circle of this year is finally curving back around. I bought a new pair of sneakers the other day and checked my sock drawer this afternoon, getting ready.

I’ve been so busy this summer with guests that it’s been a while since I’ve really spent any time alone, time that wasn’t just getting home from work and chopping some vegetables and making up a new half-kilo of yogurt and getting into bed before midnight with a book. A. and I both woke up this morning with a deep desire to clean the house: when I finally staggered out of my room she’s already done her whites and was bleaching her duvet cover in the sink. I vacuumed and ran the dishwasher and finally cleaned up my room enough to be able to see the top of the dresser and the actual floor. I forgot to take out the rubbish and watched the inexplicable
Laguna Beach, shaking my head and fearing for humanity but figuring I might as well use it as an opportunity to help my Kiwi housemate to perfect her best vapid-girl American accent.

“What-iv-eh” she said.

“Really get that R in there,” I counseled, dipping some pita bread into my sundried-tomato hummus. “That will make or break your ‘whatever.’”

“What-iv-errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”

“Perfect! Great eye-roll that time. Now say ‘walk’ like that blond girl just did who keeps getting back together with that guy who’s only going to hurt her in the end if her well-meaning friends don’t step in.”

“Wohk.”

“Waaaaalk.”

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhk.”

“Close. Flatten that vowel out. It’s like, ‘wok,’ right, like what you stir-fry snow-peas in?” (This is how A. teaches me Maori pronunciation and it always works. You should hear me say “whanau” or “Taupo,” for example.)

“Oh, wok. Yiss!”

That was pretty fun but it was a nice day outside and I was feeling a little sun guilt, as well as feeling also vaguely weirded out by having nothing to do, no one to meet at Espressoholic or to pick up dinner fixings with, no one to meet for a chai tea latte later in the afternoon. It’s been a while since I’ve been at loose ends. After a couple minutes hanging my laundry to dry and texting back and forth with my friend Mat about his first cross-dressing experience (“Girl, next time use uncooked rice in a sock and wear a bra. They will look way more realistic,”) I rolled on out of the house, heading towards the beach. Antsy. Itchy. Edgy. Aware that I was taking a walk just to take a walk, that I was sort of killing time before I made the roasted pumpkin salad for dinner I’d been planning all weekend.

There are so few things in my life that cannot be helped or healed by going to the beach and looking in the tidepools, at the kelp roiling amongst the rocks, I thought, after I’d had my hot chocolate and failed to write much of anything in my paper journal, which I just realized I’ve been keeping for twenty years. But what needs helping? What needs healing, here and now? Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine. I have basically no problems and I spend a lot of time counting my blessings, so why did I tear up as I balanced over the jagged points out to the calm blue sea? Why did something swell up a little and burst in my chest, looking out to the straits, to the bay’s namesake island? Why did I think about being able to breathe underwater, diving down through the living arches and porticoes and out to the open ocean, away from all the homey satisfactions of my afternoon? What now, I thought, turning away and heading back to the dune. What next?

The wind pushed me back up the road and into my clean fresh-smelling house, to my nicely made bed and my tidy kitchen. It’s almost time for bed as I write this, time for another week. It’s April. It’s not fall yet but it will be soon, and I have no idea what’s going to happen next.