Letter to October #2

Dear October,
       I am surprised, again and again, by things coming back to me. This morning I sat in a coffee shop, and didn't write, even though I meant to. This is not the first time I have chosen to do the opposite of what I know I want. It will not be last. This is certainly not the last time I will tell you about it, October. Instead, I wrote in my car on my lunch break. I was sitting in my car with the air conditioning on because sitting in the park I had gone to was getting too hot because it is still ninety degrees here.

This morning, at the coffee shop, when I was supposed to be writing, I asked about a ring I had lost a few weeks ago. I love wearing rings, but like sunglasses, I have a tendency to lose them. Anyway, it was a long shot. The barista wanted to know what kind of stone it was and I felt silly for asking about a $6 ring that had been missing for weeks, but I told her it looked like an opal. And suddenly there she was, holding it out to me.

I've been thinking about why some things return to us and others don't. Why we're plagued by the same problems, but we don't recognize them. Why good things happen again and again, and we're surprised by them. Why is it when we set out to do something, it makes it harder to do it? Why is it that something as simple as getting a ring back can feel so gratifying, like some piece of the universe has clicked back into place?

I took more pictures today then I have in a long time. I took a picture of my coffee cup, the flowers climbing up a telephone pole near the bookstore, droplets of rain on my windshield. These letters make me notice more, October. That's another kind of return. A return to who I am in October, the girl who takes note. I wonder what else I've been missing.

Laura


Song of the Day: The Water by Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling