The healing garden sits off the 7th floor of the hospital. We walk the path slowly. The wooden planks under our feet lay wet, and the sound of trickling water falling down a tiny waterfall at the far side of the garden meets the mist around us. We pass the small bonsai trees and pause at the gathering of stones painted with hopeful wishes. After a few laps, we stop and sit at the far end. A deep fog is rolling in from the harbor and delivering dusk. I can barely make out the tops of the hills that rise above the city outskirts, but the fog hasn't lowered all the way yet, and I can see the yellow leaves of the trees, some vibrant orange too, sweeping the midsection of the hills. A colorful contrasting backdrop for the office buildings and brick row homes lining the streets. This view reminds me of my view of the city on a rainy October day three years ago. I look down and see the top floor of the parking garage. It is the exact view from three years ago, except this time, I have a bit higher perspective.
I don't know when, exactly, I became a person who listens to Taylor Swift on repeat, but I am. I suppose, perhaps, 13 years ago, and that coincidence isn't lost on me. 2009: the October I spent reminding myself how to breathe -- in and out -- filling my peach walls with "You Belong with Me," while I pulled on my scrunched down gray boots, hair straightener in my hand, a Blue Moon likely sitting on the red porch rail already. A Blue Moon I didn't drink. The October I painted my nails black, watched the rain slam against the window panes then run down the glass like small streams of tears blurring the yellow leaves of the trees in the side yard, an instrumental mashup of "Love Story Taylor Swift meets Viva La Vida by Coldplay" on hour after hour -- breathe in breathe out -- repeat. In November, I traced my eyelids with thick black eyeliner and pulled on my black cap down over my forehead and went out to meet the tide.
I packed that black cap with me when I traveled to Seattle two years later, in the last weeks of October. It sat in my suitcase the first week and a half, while I unpacked the boxes, filled the name tags, stuffed folders, met with caterers, checked on projectors, laughed out loud and too hard at the joke: how many degrees does it take to get the folding table upright? Up before the sun, my hotel room windows peeked between the buildings and gifted a glimpse of Puget sound that sat dark and moody before the sun rose to the east. I had retired most of my angst, along with my heavy black eyeliner, but my black hat sat waiting for me in my suitcase as I exhausted my warmest welcomes, my cheeriest deliveries, my energy my energy my energy. I danced in empty storage rooms amid empty boxes to fill myself up until the very last night, when I walked into my hotel room, turned off the lights in my bathroom, climbed into my tub and pulled the shower curtain closed. Enough, I knew. The next morning, I woke early, slid on my black cap, found a venti cup of Starbucks, and boarded a ferry headed toward an island full of yellow and orange leaves.
A year later, I'd find myself sitting on the grassy hill of a Brooklyn park, pulling my thin jacket tighter around me and feeling the fall chill sweep through my body. I'd stay sitting there, on that cold ground, long enough for the sun to drop and illuminate the orange and yellow trees below my spot perched on the grassy hill, and my goodness, I knew. It would take me years to understand, but I knew then, and the trees danced in the light, and I refused to leave until it grew too dark to stay. I left that park not knowing I would move into the same neighborhood six weeks later, or that Superstorm Sandy would flood my home, my neighborhood, my life. I left that park not knowing we'd slide into tiny chairs in front of the takeout counter and squeezed right against the front windows of the best enchilada place in the city, only a couple of blocks down, a few years later. But looking out over those trees, beyond the words to understand it, I knew.
I'd stand on an above-ground subway platform a few Octobers later and gaze out at the industrial Gowanus canal flanked in metal i-beams. The late day sun beamed unexpectedly warm and sweat started to gather below my coat collar, my arms growing weary under the weight of my two Ikea bags. The two blue bags, almost as heavy as I, filled with photo frames for my bedroom wall, pillows, and a tiny bookshelf that I thought I might have to leave on the side of the road anyway, once it became too heavy. Had I overestimated my strength? Maybe down the road, somewhere between this subway platform and the express bus aisle, I would have to give it up or collapse under the weight of it, but standing there on that subway platform, with the dark gray water holding space below the sparse specks of yellow October leaves, I decided to carry it all one step at a time. I made it home with every item that afternoon, my arms sore and my heart racing and the evening growing too dark too soon, but I made it home. I unrolled the pillows, hung the picture frames, and built the tiny bookshelf before bed, before my cup of nighttime tea, before I surrendered to the weight of it all.
This October time feels finite. I am gathering pieces of myself -- smooth stones black as eyeliner. Taylor Swift's Midnights on repeat, it's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me. Maybe I'll find my black cap, pull it low -- enough. A knowing. My fingers find my jagged edges, a relief, a reckoning, a rising. A surrender, but not to the weight of it all -- a surrender to my strength. November is one of my favorite months.
