Autumn. Autumn. Autumn.
It almost sounds like nothing when I say it too many times in a row, but I can smell it all the same. Have we gotten to the point where it’s cliche to fall in love with a season?
Do I care?
I’ve already told you about the girl named after the season and the pajamas that made me feel like a sinner. She was too nice to ask out, and I didn’t deserve her anyway. I can still picture her ass, though, and that’s more than enough.
I’ve told you about fighting, chasing, teasing, and cheating, and sometimes I wonder if there is anything left to write. Sex is both big and small, and there are only so many ways to tell the same story.
But as Piper and I begin to think about dating again (okay, she’s doing better at it than I am), I wonder if this is the time of year for it. Mainly because I know that all the emotion that swirls around me as the wind turns cold makes me sappy, it makes me sweet and gentle, and I could fall in love with a curl in someone’s hair.
But I miss love. Not the stable and glorious love that comes from time and attention but the love that comes from the balance of desire and curiosity. The urge to know someone better. The waiting and longing for a kiss and the tender temptation of an elastic hemline.
I don’t think that’s what I’m going to find. At least not intentionally. That sort of attraction is seldom planned. It’s not made from witty banter or long first dates. The kind of attraction dug up by Autumn winds is a random love as unexpected as the first snow.
And sometimes, I think the element of surprise is as essential as the rest.
I fell in love with R when I saw her smoking on the patio at a party. She was a friend of a friend, and I knew that when I looked at her, my heart was tender.
With L, it was almost an accident. My wife at the time was making out with L’s husband, and so the two of us, playfully and without expectations, decided to give it a try too. Three hours later, when they came knocking on our door, it was to discover us out of breath and teetering on the brink of obsession.
And with A, it was when her best friend (whom I was dating) introduced us, and I spit my drink in her face. She was so beautiful, so kind, and so off-limits I knew there was no going back.
I’m going out tonight (or have been out, as the case may be when you get this), and I’ll try to ignore it. I’ll try to forget any idea of looking or searching and instead let myself be out in the world, slightly less afraid than I have been and far more open to beautiful accidents.
There are many kinds of love and many ways to find it. And on a chilly November night, the love that calls to me is the kind I don’t expect. The kind of love that is as bright as it is unhurried.
The kind of love that keeps me warm and awake when the whole world drifts off to sleep.