Hey boy,
It’s peak fall.
Let’s put on our flannels over some layers and walk out
among the rust colored leaves. We don’t have to talk a lot because the beauty
of the place is going to do the talking on its own. But if you want to, we can
talk about our parents or Thanksgiving plans or whatever. I’ll listen. But
wait, is that the sound of a pileated woodpecker? Did you hear that? It's the sound of peak fall.
Hey boy,
It’s peak fall.
Do you play a wind instrument? I’m putting together a band
called wood smoke and winter, but I think we’re going to practice this fall and
maybe hole up in a cabin come winter and sing about all the things we’ve lost. Did you lose something sometime? Maybe your childhood or a piece of yourself? Let's go sing about it and write song lyrics.
Hey boy,
It’s peak fall
We can put on our scarves and sneak by Starbucks to get a
pumpkin spice latte. Even though neither one of us really likes the synthetic
taste. It’s a right of passage, pouring our drink out over the crumpled yellow
leaves on the street two blocks from my house.Afterwards, we can walk by trees and look at bits of deep blue sky between barren branches. It's peak fall.
Hey boy,
It’s peak fall.
Let’s go apple picking somewhere out in the country, with
green rolling hills, and homemade pies and apple cider doughnuts. It’s so easy
to pick a lot of apples very quickly, but I know you like to stick around and
try and get as many non-conventional varieties as possible. We can use one of
those apple pickers or maybe just climb the trees like when we were children.Later, we can make some pies and apple crisps and lie around and talk about our favorite romantic movies.
Hey boy,
It’s peak fall.
We can just stay in and read our books today underneath our
blankets. Because it’s nice to finally be in a season where it’s okay to get
underneath blankets and just be cozy, and we can talk about the blanket forts
we built as children, or just watch light cloak the trees. And maybe we can read out loud to each other when we get to good parts and use strange voices for different characters.
Hey boy,
It’s peak fall.
Let’s go for a hike somewhere with a view. We can hear the
leaves crunch beneath our feet and feel the warmth of the sun as it gets
through the trees. It’ll take a while for us to get warm, when we can only see
our breath, but in the meantime we can keep our hands in our pockets and mumble
things to one another until we feel warm. Maybe we'll hike up to a waterfall and listen to it patter down on the rocks and we'll tell each other about our grandmothers.
Hey boy,
It’s peak fall.
Why don’t you come over and do some baking? I have two
aprons. We can just keep the heat low and warm ourselves by the oven while the
pumpkin muffins are cooking. It’s okay to stand close to the oven. It’ll keep
us warm, and we can listen to Bon Iver and talk about how good baked goods
smell. And maybe later we can move into the living room and have a piece of something pumpkiny and laugh for a while.
Hey boy,
It’s peak fall.
Hey boy,
It’s peak fall.
Let’s head out to a pumpkin patch and find something good.
Later, we’ll come back and carve out some great jack-o-lantern faces and maybe
roast some pumpkin seeds and wait for the cider to mull and nap in the afternoon, our faces, for once, not creased by worry.
Hey boy,
It’s peak fall.
We can dress up in scary costumes and go to one of those
parties where all of our friends are drinking beer and handing out candy to little
kids. And we can sit and talk about how we both dressed up as ninjas while we
drink craft pumpkin ales and take pictures beneath the fake spider webs. Or maybe we can just go out to some colonial spot where George Washington took a bath and maybe talk about our shared love of American history. It's peak fall.
