this fall and all it brings

Monday, and the windows are open. But last night, there was frost on the panes, and today I am wearing my trusty fall shoes, my Clarks.

We spent the weekend in Ohio, celebrating these nuptials of ours with my mother's side of the family. When we left Atlanta, the foothills of the Piedmont were red-brown below us. When we landed in Dayton, I could see out the window that the farms below were stitched together at ninety-degree angles, punctuated with shockingly yellow trees. It was autumn all around us, and on the ride from the airport to the hotel, I counted the sumac and sugar maples. I may not miss winter, but I miss fall. My fellow Southern ex-pats requested that I take pictures of trees, and I did. They almost matched my tights.

It was good to be back in southern Ohio. I drank a Kwak on Friday night downtown, ate chicken and waffles and frites with my cousin and his wife. I had a few hours to myself on Saturday morning and got to wander the aisles of Target, purchasing (ACT SURPRISED) a plaid shirt and striped dress (I SAID, ACT SURPRISED). On Saturday afternoon, we gathered at my aunt's house, and there were platters of food from Kroger and the football game blaring from downstairs. The bathrooms have been remodeled, but I still know that in the upstairs one, the switches are flipped, and reached for the far one to turn on the lights.

This is why we eloped: so that we could visit in some meaningful way with the people we love. Not trying to jam it all into one night in a reception hall. Not overwhelmed by the context of these friends from college mashing up against these people who saw me in diapers and these people that I've never met. Not in between bites of fancy food and shouted over a song we specifically requested the DJ not play.

But this way, so that we could sit around the table and stand in the kitchen and coo at the babies and steal out to the garage to filch beers from the cooler. That Midwestern sort of Visiting with a capital V. You sit around the table, you tell the new stories and then the old ones. You see where you come from. You know, in those moments, that no matter where you go, these are your people. And later, when you are on the plane headed home, you rest your head against the window and have one brief moment to be thankful for this fall and all it brings.