Scattering

Autumn, darkness, and a few books

Dear Friends,

This time last month, I was moving out of my shared house in the Ravenna neighborhood and awaiting keys to my sweet little apartment in North Beacon Hill. I’d moved into the shared house back on April first, after quarantining for fourteen days in a friend’s apartment in the U District. For the six months prior, Europe had been my home, although an unstable one. First I was in the Czech Republic for a Fulbright, then Italy, France, and the UK. I flew back from Iceland, where I’d planned a “vacation” before returning to the U.S., on March 16th.

In those early Covid days I was in the UK, and spent a few lovely days in Edinburgh, where I walked the emptying streets, bought a pink scarf in a lovely shop, and drank a Lagavulin in a pub, by myself, while watching the news unfold. I didn’t know that would be my last good Scotch (I’ve been sober nearly five months now), nor did I know that I was on my last travel adventure for a long time, but I was aware that something terrible was unfolding.

On my second day in Edinburgh the first travel ban was put into place, and I woke up to texts from friends asking if I could get home. The night before, I’d switched from a shared hostel room to a single, though it was above my budget. Someone had been coughing in the pods we shared, and I was terrified of getting sick and giving the sickness to someone else.

Before my flight home, I waited outside the gate, until most people had been seated, to decrease my exposure. Most of the passengers seemed unconcerned. None of us wore masks— while in Reykjavik I’d tried to purchase one, but couldn’t find any, nor could I find hand sanitizer or wipes. I had a precious package of sani-wipes I’d bought in Italy months before, and I used one to wipe off the seat. The woman next to me, half of an older couple from Oregon, was doing the same.

None of us could have predicted our future. When I moved my things into the small room in my shared house, I was sure it was a fine fit. I’d live there for a long time. But the pressure of living with four people was intense, especially as I was working to finish and turn in my book. My roommates were strangers and, unbeknownst to me, working through their own interpersonal conflicts. The rent was cheap, which made leaving hard, but once I was gone I understood that I’d needed to live alone all along. It was worth the expense.

Now the leaves are announcing their departure. Summer, which stretched on forever while also disappearing spring (what did I do then? meditated, took walks, wrote), is all-the-way gone, its wispy tendrils gliding along the earth and blooming on the other side of the equator. I wake to darkness and arrive home in darkness. The air here in Seattle smells achingly familiar; damp fallen leaves, saturated wind, a faint smell of ocean and exhaust. It’s beautiful.

Volunteer Park, Seattle (photo by me)

Winter in Seattle used to frighten. It was because of the depression I experienced so often growing up here, because of my mom’s suicide and the way Seattle reminded me of her at every turn, because of the winter after she died, how terrible it was. But time has passed, and I am both integrated with and separate from the person I used to be. I am not sad, though I feel sadness. I am grateful. For my little apartment, for the twinkling city lights out my window, for the soft raindrops like drumming fingertips on my roof. The train passes and howls. I relish the sound.

In the mornings, I have my coffee and breakfast and read or write. Currently I’m immersed in Gathering Moss, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who also wrote the incredible book Braiding Sweetgrass. Gathering Moss is a luscious deep dive into the life of moss. The writing, on a sentence level, is as fine tuned and microscopically fascinating as its subject. I find myself wanting to buy a microscope, or stopping on trails with the boys I nanny to point out mosses growing on branches and logs. I want to show them the boundary layer, and they listen attentively.

On the way to work and back, or while folding laundry or doing household management tasks, I often listen to audiobooks. I chose Sally Rooney’s Normal People for this week, though I’ve read it twice before (and seen the series, twice). Reading a book with your eyes and then your ears provokes different modes of noticing. I didn’t like the book as much when I listened to it. It sounded mechanical, like a clunky machine. Because I already knew the plot, everything surrounding it stood out sharply, and I learned a lot by listening to it.

Currently, I am watching the small trees outside my window dance and flirt with the wind. Their leaves are still green, and backdropped by the gray concrete of the street. I have to leave soon, for work, but I’ve enjoyed these moments with you.

Love,

Stacy