I feel like it would probably be easier to label these as “Post _” instead of “Week _” but at this point I have committed to the naming, and also I think I said this last time but it definitely gives me the hopeful feeling that I’m going to stick with this. If I were to go with “Post _” it would be way too easy to skip a week and I don’t need to make it any easier for me to procrastinate publishing these. But with the weather being what it has been this week I’ve spent a lot more time indoors which translates to more time to get this written up and then agonized over and then re-written and then panic published without actually taking enough time to go through to make sure it’s actually sensical and cohesive. You know, my… style? Style works there, I’m going with style.
I think that actually… that sums up all I really need to say before diving into this one. Wow, look at me: concise writer. Also, from the sub-header you can tell I am now a person who uses y’all. Just trying it out to see if I feel like a fraud using it.
Week Three
Cue up that tiktok sound from Bo Burnham’s special that I still haven’t seen yet: “tiny pumpkins” because this week I have been seeing a lot of them. I mean, obviously, since we are in the home stretch of Spooky Season. But it feels less like a Halloween kind of thing and more like a harvest timey kind of thing, if that makes any sense. If this were the kind of publication that had little embedded pictures in it, this is where you would see a grainy cell phone picture from an iPhone that is starting to show its age.
One of my favorite little things about living in a small New England city (on a surprisingly small list because I don’t really love where we live right now and that is a horse of a completely different color and we can get into that some other time) is that a couple of blocks from us the neighborhood gets really really quaint. I think we live a block or so too close to the college so the houses have suffered some over the last couple hundred years and they have gotten chopped up over time into apartments like ours instead of small single family homes, and the charm isn’t very present. Especially on our block because we live across the street from a parking structure but that’s fine sometimes. So when I’m going to take an after dinner walk to settle my stomach, it’s usually going to be just in and around the few blocks just south of our apartment where the little houses are. When the sun is setting or its already gone and the street lights make their bright little pools contrasting against the dim oranges coming from the porches, all the different shades bouncing off of the stoops and the decorations of autumn have this weirdly calming effect on me.
It’s this, I don’t really know how to describe it? There is a wholesomeness to it that makes me feel like I’m in a place, whenever I turn around a corner and see it, that everyone cares about the people around them in some weird way. This might be me projecting, or just finding some kind of meaning that isn’t really there, but that’s the sense that I get. Its this quiet consideration of the other people you live around that you don’t see in the suburbs, with the blow-up Dracula and its whirring motor or the projector running all night with ghosts all over the front of a house or (and I swear I saw this more than once) the strobe light and fog machine every night for a full month. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Halloween at all. In fact it might be one of my favorite holidays. But what I don’t really care for it the over-the-top mentality that people can take without having any sort of mindset to consider the other people they live around, like the neighbors we had living in the suburbs who would just run their lights all night for a month straight for any holiday lighting up the inside of our bedroom through the curtains. This more urbane (I could easily look up to make sure this is the right word, but it feels fine so there it is) approach to decorating has this air to it that makes me feel so much more welcome when I see it, especially when I see it for a whole block’s worth of homes.
In case it hasn’t been apparent from the somewhat disjointed nature of this week’s post, it hasn’t been a stellar mental health week for me. But I guess what I really wanted to talk about here is the sense of community and the overall effect it can have on a person. Even if it’s just a perceived sense of consideration and welcoming; the calming sense that can be found is a game changer. Going into our fourth month in a new city with no real moorings has been pretty rough, especially when my days have been nebulous and fluid in their shape and purposefulness its hard to feel included or wanted. So for me this week, my reason for sticking around has been the hope that I can find that feeling for myself here. Even if its only manufactured in my head walking around a neighborhood slightly adjacent to my own and seeing the tableau of fall spread across stoops and railings, maybe someday it can be more than just in my head. Not the most positive note to end one of these on, but if you’ve made it all the way to the end here at least its a hopeful send off for you. See you all next week.