on a bright, cloudless october day, a man hung out of his window and called to a woman below. i scurried past them and wondered what it’d be like to live on that street instead of mine. what the view would look like drooling in from the outside. could he see the very top of my apartment from his window? does he wonder the same about me? about what my living room looks like, or where the dust gathers in my hallway?
something about a clear sky with harsh sunlight like that always reminds me of minneapolis. maybe because every time i visit it’s december and the city at that time is laid bare for the cold, white sun. secrets like dirt and dead squirrels are hidden under giant heaps of snow that grow smaller every year but are still bigger than the ones here. salt-light roads make me smile and i nod at them in familiarity. i hope for snow every day that i feel a breeze yet chicago demands i wear a light jacket until february now. the cold sting of winter on the top of my brows is a welcomed feeling. swaths of yellow leaves fallen pool at my quick, delighted ankles.
i’m getting into the swing of things, i think. routine is a great joy of mine and i thrive most when i know exactly what’s to come. like my grandfather, i like quite a bit of repetition. he’s a regular at cub’s bakery and i wear his leather jacket to catch the 8:47 bus to the office. all no nonsense, the longest i can keep him on the line is about four minutes. he calls to tell me when the weather’s going to be bad or different down here. i don’t need to know when a storm is headed my way, i just need to wait at the phone.
sophie and i zoomed all around chicago in my spare time. we hopped from concert to train to bar to exciting fancy dinner to her couch where we crumpled together and watched our favorite films. and then at the end of october we handed out candy on her porch and despite the snow and ice, her landlord gifted us freezing beers which we took gratefully. at least it’s not blizzard of ’91, i said to my mom that morning. oh my god i know, she said. was it really ’91?
and then i thought about my halloween dog and hoped the earth has been keeping his bones warm.
i made my mother’s soup recipes and wondered if we ever accidentally cooked the same thing for dinner. do we ever eat wild rice at the same time? if i sit down at the empty kitchen table will my family fill in the vacant seats if we retire in unison?
october bled into november quite easily and simply. the midnight snow melted steadily until everyone forgot it snowed in the first place.
i then developed bronchitis slowly and over the course of several weeks. despite people’s insistence, i figured i was fine until i wasn’t. i spent the days leading to thanksgiving mostly cooped up in my room, nauseous off azithromycin and hacking. amy and i then cooked an easy meal and drank cider and watched leave it to beaver and actually laughed at most of the jokes. my green bean casserole didn’t satiate my need for nostalgic food and i ended up throwing half of it away. i facetimed my family and pretended to be a part of their holiday, propped up on the kitchen island.
i considered the sentimentality of objects. sophie and i jokingly say we’re building shrines for one another. our lives appear on our fridge doors and in piles on my desk. i stole stickers from bar trivia and she hung up a ribbon from her birthday present that her cat, ernie, enjoys greatly. we crowded around the bathroom doorway to peek around the corner and witness him pawing at it from his spot on the floor.
i can’t help but gather, my brain wants it all and more.
first, it was rocks, stuffed animals, books. then: homework assignments, cheap art supplies, one direction posters. now: craps of paper and bookcloth, cards from people who love me, tabs on my phone. one that says “linden tree” so i can remember what kind of tree used to live outside my grandma’s window.
i give stories away to people so they can hold them for me. i get excited when i remember something new. lately, they’ve all been shaking out: my grandpa thinks the perfect number of clothing items is five shirts and five pants, ashlyn had a speech impediment when she was very young that made her own name sound like a slushie, jade and avery and i all had correlating disney nightgowns.
i used to kick at the ground every time my swing reached center, a reminder of time passed.