We are nearing the end of summer here in Ohio, and I'm so excited for fall. Fall is my favorite season. I love the changing trees, return of the breeze, and endings. I love endings because they mark new beginnings.
Today I walked to my neighborhood farmer's market and picked up a watermelon from an Amish farmer. She brought tens from her patch. I asked the farmer for her biggest so she gave me her biggest. I laughed at how big it was and thought about how exciting it will be to cut in half and shovel into my mouth later. I did not think about how I was going to lug it home.
I ended up carrying it all the way through the market with both hands, then back down my street to my apartment, all while walking my stubborn and independent dog Lila. On the walk back home, Lila wanted to cross an intersection diagonally instead of the proper way. In the rush hour traffic, while I toted the most giant Amish watermelon, Lila wrestled free from her collar and began trotting naked across the street diagonally. Tongue out, no care in the world. I screamed, big melon against my chest. Lila stopped the four-way traffic. I could see the drivers laughing at the scene from their cars.
Lila is my big watermelon. Each week at the farmer's market, she is a sight to see. People love to say hi to her, call her cute, rotund, stocky. She loves her people. We do our rounds at our favorite booths. Nancy makes dog treats from beef and chicken liver, and she always gives Lila some free to-gos. Leslie makes soups I like, including a great sweet potato soup that I always tell him he needs to restock because it's always out when I get there. We've got a hot sauce guy, a honey family, and a grain man. We get great nectarines. And I always leave with a ginger lemonade from Camille and her partner.
It's been good and quiet on the homefront. Wow, yeah. In taking this moment to write, I'm realizing how nice it's become. Candidly, I had a pretty terrible first half of the year. After my last relationship ended, which totaled my mental health and coincided with a health crash, I made concerted efforts to become more self-centered than ever. I'm proud to say I am a different person than I was a few months ago, in a subtle, interior way. I have felt much happier, physically healthier, more stable, and more myself. Therapy, acupuncture, domestic violence counseling, and meditation. Lots of movies, creative sessions, and alone time. My circle is tiny—four great friends and a few long-distance body doubles—my discernment is sharp. I'm much better now at noticing unsafe people, and better yet at half-safe people—the people who I've given too much benefit of the doubt, too much betting on potential. There are some situations where cognitively, everything reads right, but underneath the surface, something's amiss in the realm of gut feelings. Those emotions are clearer to me. I simply leave people and situations now. I don't even say no or explain myself, unless it's important to me to be polite (politeness isn't something I always value). I cherish my privacy, anonymity, and offlineness. I've spoken to several older and wiser women this summer, all of whom have repeated similar advice: be selfish. Do what you want. Never settle in love, in work, in life. Go after what you deserve with abandon. Do not give mental energy away that will not return to you in juicy, blooming tenfold.
I have time this evening to write as I sip my farmer's market lemonade. I might finish rewatching Howl's Moving Castle tonight after this writing, after a little bit more work. My home is still messy—I'm in the middle of floor renovations, I'm perpetually a bit behind on dishes and laundry, and I came across an assortment of giant canvases in July (I'm talking giant) that I have propped up along my oblong walls. But my home is mine, and the mess is tolerable to me, my pets, and my four friends.
When spring ended and summer began, I prayed a lot. I sat on a floor pillow and wrote many lists, lit candles, burned herbs and incense and strips of papers with wishes. All my life I have felt like I am preparing for something scrumptious. I know only a few milestones of this has come to pass so far. In sitting down with myself, I have restarted that internal dialogue. I have felt, in this summer, a mood of parthenogenesis. This is a crazy sentence to wield, I know. What I mean is that this concept of miraculous birth, a mother bearing new life alone, has resonated with me in a visceral, inarticulable way. I am alone in a city I could not locate on a map about five years ago, but I have made my way here with a pet family, a house, and solidly gathered friendships. I have set the flooring down, and I am standing up soon. Every strategy list and prayer and vision board and plan has marinated. They are clear now. My career projects are arriving and their parenting is my responsibility. They are ambitious, but I am up to the challenge and ready for the discipline. As much as an agnostic person can claim it, this feels like a miraculous birth to me. A big watermelon.
Tonight the house is quiet. When I write and work these days, I keep the house silent, barring the occasional meditation song playlist. But later I will finish watching Howl's on my couch with Lila and Cali as I sip my nighttime tea, and the score with be loud. I will get sleepy to the songs and the rich and harmonious Miyazaki colors. I will crawl into bed and listen to a sleep meditation and doze off. In the morning, I will stir when Cali licks my face and Lila does her first snort-and-stretch. I will dance when I wake up. I will work and drive and call my friends, living a day and night that I could repeat until the day I die, when I am 90 years-old.
Also, one last update: I have finally discovered Cali's full name. The shelter named my cat Cali after her calico coat pattern. It was the most basic name possible, but I could never figure out her real name. When I got her, I didn't know her well enough. Well, now it's been two years and I've found myself calling her Calcifer, after the sassy fire demon in Howl's Moving Castle. A miraculous new beginning.
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