i was born in september; it’s my time. we who live in temperate climates have an almost primal tie to the cycles: to the the holding up of light against the darkness, to bonfires, to harvest, to the dying land. there’s a thrum in the blood, a return to the hunt, something fierce and violent, but right on the edge of a long, peaceful somnolence. we gobble up the abundance before the lean times, festooning everything with corn and squashes and wheat as though piling our porches will sustain us through the winter. it is glorious, this time of plenty, but we also stand upon the threshold of a metaphysical death and we feel it, deep. we watch the skies, we smell the wind, we begin looking for omens in the stripes of a caterpillar or the height of a bees nest. there is a hush now, an echo of the missing summer songbirds, a susurrus that’s something more than leaves, a whisper that is thrilling and terrifying, that pushes us to leap over bonfires, spill the blood of the autumn king, tell tales of spirits with the heads of pumpkins. and eat candy apples, blister our hands on rake handles, and grumble in the morning about having to put on proper shoes.
happy september, friends.
the gumboot gumshoe 